Popendetta and Tufi

Hey can anyone make any reccomendations about places to stay and things to do in Popendetta and Tufi?

Cheers

I was in Tufi a couple of weeks ago and stayed at the Tufi Resort. The resort may not be your thing, but I found out that there are many villages along the coast that have guest houses. I meet some people that stayed in one guesthouse and they said it was great. In a village close to Tufi I saw a guesthouse and it looked pretty good and the village was really nice.

You would be able to stay in those guesthouses, but I think you would have to arrange it through the Resort as they are sort of connected to the Resort. But once you stayed in one I am sure that you would be able to arrange with the locals for someone to take you down the coast to another village with a guesthouse.

You could fly to Tufi and then talk with the manager of the Resort (Simon) and see what he could, or is prepared, to arrange for you. You could try taliking to their Port Moresby Office (Ph 320 1484) or try and get through to the resort itself (ph 275 3200) and see what the go is.

Haven't been to Popendetta.

there's a decent hotel in popondetta i stayed at a few year's back. a security staff member was beating the bejesus out of someone as i was checking in, but he looked like a local so don't let that put you off as a tourist.

I think the only place to stay in Tufi itself is the resort (which is lovely) but as the previous poster says you can arrange to stay in outlying villages through them. We spent a few nights out in two different villages and stayed in the resort either side of this. Simon organised it for us as it's pretty much impossible to contact them otherwise. The village guest houses have an arrangement with Simon, and he sends people out to them, changing which one he contacts so that they all get a fair share of tourist money. Our time in the villages was one of the best experiences we had in PNG. We stayed with Rodney and Fabian. I can't remember the village names at the moment. It is very basic accommodation with no water or electricity, and is just beautiful. Fabian is right on the beach and Rodney as a bit of a hike higher up. They cooked us great food at night and took us for walks in the area. The resort mainly organised the boat transfers for us.

forgot to say - for things to do: if you like diving, then there's plenty of it in Tufi. The resort organises the dive trips and they're great.

Apart from Tufi Dive Resort there are about 20 village guest houses along the coast around Tufi. The Dive Resort only books some of them. Our company offers a 7 night hike-and-paddle package that involves staying one night at each of six different village guest houses and the last night at the resort.
I think we're probably also the only company offering arrangements for Popondetta. We run Kokoda treks so we operate a lot in that part of the country (Oro Province). There are some beautiful village guest houses in Oro Province that get hardly any visitors. All the attention is on the Kokoda Track which to be honest has the worst village guest houses in the country (they have a captive market and just don't make any effort to provide the level of comfort and service that guest houses in other parts of the country do, where they have to fight tooth and nail for every tourist they get.)

Further to ecomel's comment. I used Ecotourism to do the 7 night hike and paddle package and we had a great time. we stayed in a different village guest house each night and walked or paddled to the next one each day. Despite this we had plenty of time for snorkelling (bring your own gear), walks and paddles into the fjords. The people in the villages were wonderful - we got showered in flowers upon arrival and generally treated like highly honoured guests. All the villages were unique in their own way and interstingly so was the food. We ate all local fair and it was delicious - fresh pumpkin shoots, crayfish, sweet potato chips, yummy bananas and cool coconut juice. Our guide Jackson was lovely and very patient with us as my not so fit, asthmatic friend needed lots of breaks (I think it amused the locals though). Anyway, just wanted to say we loved it and have made some longterm friends out of it. I was blown away when Doreen's father from Tainabuna (one of the villages) contacted me recently in Port Moresby with a gift from Tufi. Doreeen had made me a clay flowerpot. And so now I am happy to say I will return to Tufi someday to take something back to Doreen.