The site was down on the backside of Goroka, but to get there, we had to travel down the Highway to Ramu – leaving the province – and then curve back up in a V-shaped route. There is no possible direct route, so where we ended up was only perhaps two hours drive from Gka as the crow flies; about 6 hours drive by road.
Past Ramu, we kept travelling once the nice bitumen road ended. We drove along a track for an hour; the Ramu river has flooded and the going was slow and precarious at times. But with some neat driving from Silas we had no troubles.
Silas however hadn’t been down here before. We were travelling down in two cars, and ours was leading for most of the way. Finally Silas pulled over and told the other car to lead; he didn’t know where this bridge was. But – no one in the other car knew its location either! We had been driving for five hours, the road was getting less and less like a road and we were quite isolated – not passing any villages anymore. There was an added bit of tension in the air because if it rained the water would rise and we wouldn’t be able to make it out: we’d be stuck in this swamp land.
But we couldn’t just turn around; talk about losing face. So we kept driving. The foliage grew thicker and thicker – how long had it been since cars had last driven down here?. It was beautiful; but eventually Silas, who had been silent for a long while, said: “this is turning into jungle; I don’t think we can drive much further.” He was right.
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