Sunday, Nov 6 - A Day on the Fly and Elevara Rivers (from Hell to Heaven)

(pic:  Blythe's Hornbill)
We got up at 4 AM and saw by looking at the swimming pool, that it was raining …bad sign for a day in an open boat! We joined the others for breakfast and then gathered our gear - everything wrapped in plastic bags and assembled at the front door of the hotel….no bus! So we grabbed our gear and boxes of lunch supplies and umbrellas, and set off down the dark main street for almost a mile in the rain until we came to the river and messy small port of Kiunga. Sam was waiting there with a 20’ open skiff with five wooden benches set inside. I put down the box of sandwiches I was carrying and my pack. David told Bob and me to get on board which we did to flash light illumination and sat down on wet seats in our rain jackets. I couldn’t find my umbrella which apparently I had left on shore in the confusion of loading up the boat, and faced a long day of being very wet!

Sam started up the outboard at 5:30 and we took off up river in the dark. Bob, Charlie and I were crammed onto one seat as there were nine of us for four benches. We used our life jackets for relief against the hard wooden seats, but it was pretty crowded! Gradually it got lighter and we could see the mighty Fly River in all its swollen glory. The river and its tributaries are flooding and great trees were submerged in several feet of water and the river full of logs and debris.

By a miracle, the solid grey sky that I thought might rain all day and possibly dump a deluge on us, started to break up and the rain lightened about eight.

We left the Fly River and turned onto the Elevara. After three hours of cruising and birding we reached Sam Kepuknai‘s little river resort. With difficulty, we all got safely out of the boat and climbed up steps to a small clearing and a lovely split black palm house with sago palm thatch roof, consisting of a dining porch and six small rooms with two sleeping platforms each. There is a nifty bamboo outhouse nearby and a kitchen hut. We took a break and rested and explored, and admired Sam’s pet Dwarf Cassowary which we can’t put on our lists, but loved seeing anyway!

(Pic:  Sam's Dwarf Cassowary)

After a couple of hours we took off in the boat for a ways up river before returning to Sam’s. Ginger reached under our seat and there was my umbrella!! Yeah! I don‘t have to buy yet another one.

Sam and his assistant, Thomas, led us into the forest; Bob and I were in our Tico boots and had an easier time walking through the water and mud than the others. We were trying to see the fabulous Southern Crested Pigeon which is about the size of a small turkey and has the most amazing curly feather topknot. Sam could hear one calling and with his and Thomas’ amazing eyes, they found one sitting in a tree, but off the trail so we slogged through vine-y, slippery, muddy undergrowth and finally most of us got wonderful looks at, at least, the head and breast. Barry and Cindy missed it, however, so we couldn’t celebrate as we otherwise would have as they were so disappointed - but what a sight!

(pic: Southern Crowned Pigeon from "Birds of New Guinea" by Brian J. Coates)
We took off in the boat and discovered that tiny leeches, that looked and acted like inch worms, were hitching themselves along on some of us, and Charlie found that one had already engorged itself on his leg and enlarged hugely! We flicked it overboard and found several more but got rid of them before they started to feed!

We finally left and started back - it was 3 PM already and we had three hours to get to Kiunga. The river was flowing so strongly that for quite a while we could cruise down river with the motor off which was lovely. Thomas suddenly pointed out a bird and we shut the motor off and found that he had somehow discovered another Southern Crested Pigeon sitting hidden in the shade high up in a tree. I can’t imagine how he saw it, but now all of us had had good views of this most extraordinary bird!

We continued home, the sky clearing with beautiful clouds, their undersides turning yellow, pink and finally violet in the setting sun. Just as it was getting really dark, the lights of Kiunga appeared and we pulled up to a trash-covered shore and were helped out. Sam and Thomas were just amazing: running the boat in swift-running water full of pieces of wood, spotting birds, and working hard for the 13 hours we were out!

We staggered back to the hotel, once again in the dark, and washed up for dinner, gathering for dinner and reviewing the great day!