Crossing PNG to Jayapura by bicycle

Hello,

I'll be landing in Port Morseby on 10th March with my touring bicycle, and want to make my way to Jayapura and into Indonesia. My understanding is that from Lae it should be possible (albeit difficult) to ride overland all the way through to Vanimo. Am I correct in this belief, and is there any particular advice that any of you could give me about the route?

As far as getting from Moresby to Lae, I know that taking a plane would be the easiest way, but I was also curious if it would be possible to take a boat around the island and reach it by sea. I take it there are freight ships that make the journey, do any of them ever take passengers or would it end up being a lot more expensive than flying?

Any other general advice or help any of you could give me would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Since once in Indonesia you will have to take boats anyway, you might as well do that on the Madang-Wewak bit.
And since I guess you reach Port Moresby by air, you might just continue to Lae that way and start overlanding there.

Hey mate!

I'm going to have to open by disagreeing with the last reply. I think you'd be cutting out one of the coolest stints of the journey if you shipped from Madang to Wewak. There's not a lot of information about for trying to do something like this, so it's easy to suppose that the only possible route through is from major centre to major centre by ship where there's not a road straight through, but here it's definitely possible.

I've actually been trying to do the exact same thing as you, except I started in Rabaul and shipped myself and the bike to Lae from there. My bike was in Rabaul originally (long story, I worked on a ship and ended up leaving it there to come back to) so I flew into Port Moresby and was investigating how to get around to Alotau and up to Rabaul. Unfortunately I can't really help you there. I didn't investigate in too much detail, but no one of the locals I knew there seemed to know in port moresby of any options for getting a ship around to Alotau and up. They believed that it was probably doable to take a banana boat from the last town along the Magi Highway (the one heading east from Port Moresby) and hop around to Alotau, but the consensus was that this would end up being hundreds of Kina more expensive than flying - and you haven't even got to Lae yet. I know for a fact that there's no passenger ship service from Alotau to Rabaul (at least one that has any business sense to advertise its services in Rabaul - I was looking) but not sure about Alotau to Lae. Banana boat hopping could be an option, but honestly, it will take time and probably thousands of Kina. There also wasn't much appetite amongst the freight company I asked in Rabaul to take me through to Lae, but that could have been because there was a passenger service. Don't know what they'd be like about it in moresby. I hate saying it because I'm such a lover of not flying, but a flight to Lae might be your best bet.

I was planning to ride from Lae onwards to Indonesia. When I got in contact with people I know here (these are Papua New Guineans) they were really excited to offer ideas for how I could see the country (they didn't, as I've found way too many white expats are prone to do, dismiss my plans out of hand as too dangerous). They were positive about my plans for riding in east new Britain and new Ireland. They weren't sure about plans for the north coast (Madang to vanimo), but they thought it could be doable. But even the most optimistic were absolutely concrete about their belief that the Lae to Madang stretch is too dangerous to ride a bike along because of specific hold ups that they could name. I decided I couldn't feel comfortable so blatantly ignoring local advice, so I decided to strap my bike to the roof of a PMV (public motor vehicle - minivan) and head through. It cost me k50 (some quoted me k40 but then ditched me for some other passengers who might've been willing to pay more and didn't have a bike, others quoted me k60) and initially I felt like the concerns were over exaggerated. The stretch of road to waterais junction, where the highway goes up to the highlands, is good - a bit pothole-y but paved for most of it and with plenty of people - so I can't imagine during the day it would be too dangerous in terms of hold ups. But after the junction the road begins to deteriorate, until it becomes a mud trail through the mountains a couple of hours (in a PMV) before Madang. Seems to be quite a bit of seismic activity there, or perhaps the ground is just really unstable, because even where there's been an attempt to pave the road once you start descending into Madang entire sections of what's been asphalted have slipped away. There are villages and markets along the way, but I can really understand why the people I talked to were so certain about the risks I'd be facing in those sort of conditions. I'd have been very slow going (lots of uphill mud) and it'd be pretty easy for me to be held up by any opportunist thief (or gang of). Seriously, kudos to you if you give it a try, if we'd been able to work the timings we might have been a bit safer riding together. But I wouldn't recommend it.

This is where I'm starting to wonder whether I was a victim of some local peoples' over exaggeration. I was told by the people I was meeting on the bus to and while I was actually in Madang that the road further on was dangerous too - me being a waitman meant I was going to get cut and robbed. One of the guys who was advising me is from the Sepik river, and he lives near alexishafen, about 10-20kms north of Madang. He had me to stay and was saying he wanted to help me get a bus onwards to Bogia. He didn't even trust me riding between Madang and his place, which I did one morning and felt completely safe. I ended up taking his help and did take a bus, feeling like id learnt from the Lae-Madang experience. I don't regret it, but I do certainly think that stretch is doable by bike - it's generally flat and I think day riding would be fine. It's not all paved, and I went just about bat shit crazy over the unsealed sections on the six hour trip, but that might not be the case on a bike where you can pick more easily where you ride on the road. That trip on the bus cost me k20, but I was quoted k25 and k30 too.

From there I caught a boat from borom, up the road a way from bogia - I'm not sure how you'd find it with the bike because the truck took us straight there. Watch your stuff. Some f*cker stole some rusted up momentos from home off my handlebars while I was sleeping. If you see a guy wearing a chain with a ring on it and a chain with a little star shaped compass, you know where they got it from. But it's most probably been melted down by now. Eh. K100 got me a ride on a banana boat out of the river that marks the Madang/east Sepik border to angoram on the Sepik river. Awesome stuff. Way better than the ship would've been. Make sure your bike isn't leaning up against the inside of the boat when you come back in from the ocean, but lie it down instead - mine sit snugly leaning against the inside while we were in the swell, but it got caught on low lying branches once we were in the riverways and nearly got ripped from the boat. Ended up snapping my front light off, but I was fortunate it didn't do more.

Same situation to Wewak from angoram, I got a ride with some people going down because of reports of hold ups. Don't know for sure about that, but the road is pretty badly unsealed and mountainous and after any rain it would be muddy. Slow going, could be true about the holdups because of that. But then it's pretty small scale a route, so I'm also sceptical. K20 is the fare if you take a truck/PMV. Wavi guesthouse in angoram is brilliant, and cheap if you say you're backpacking. Ask around when you get there and you'll find it.

I'm in Wewak now, and I've heard my first optimism about cycling around here from a guy who drives the road to aitape regularly. He didn't really think there was much risk of a holdup between here and aitape as long as I tried to avoid weekend afternoons - that's when young men are more likely to be getting drunk together next to the roads. He also said the road is alright. Sealed until a middle section which is unsealed until a sealed section to aitape. I got the sense these sections were generally thirds of the way. I'm therefore planning to actually ride this section the day after tomorrow.

I've been hard pressed finding reliable consistent information on a road from aitape to vanimo. One guy (not a PMV/boat driver) told me the road was closed because of the wet season (what? With the lack of rain they've had here?) and that the airport is closed, so supplies are only coming from Indonesia or by ship. Not sure about all of this, but he did seem to know a lot about the fact that the road was built by a logging company that has now left it in disrepair. The guy who was optimistic about the Wewak aitape road seemed to scoff at the idea of the road aitape-vanimo being flooded, as he felt this couldn't be classed as a wet season. He did say it was not a road compared to the Wewak-aitape road. There don't seem to be vehicles going along it carrying passengers as far as I can ascertain - everyone seems to think the only way through is by boat from aitape. I'm gonna ask around in aitape to work it out.

Everyone I've asked seems to think that the road to Indonesia from vanimo is paved with gold and army outposts to protect against thieving raskols, so I've had very little concerns about riding that section.

Hope that helps, but isn't too much! Wish I could have ridden more of it - there's also been a shortened visa I've had to contend with after I got a bout of dengue, so I've not protested too much when people have encouraged me to put my bike on top of a vehicle because I'm not wanting to overstay. Now I'm this close I know I can be out by 15 March, so I'm a little less willing to truck it. My email is my username @gmail.com. If you search Geraint Schmidt you'll find me on Facebook (that's probably easier - less spam). Flick me a message if you want more info. If we tee it up we might even be able to meet somewhere if you're gonna be in indo for any length of time. I've got a 2 month visa, be great to have a riding buddy for a portion of it. Good luck with the planning!

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