Around the World with the Woltjers

The last leg of our journey was with Mission Aviation Fellowship. We took a small MAF airplane from Port Moresby to Mount Hagen, a two-hour flight. As you can see from the map, we left the coastal capital city and headed inland. Our cruising altitude was about 12,000 ft. We experienced a view of Papua New Guinea that we have not had the opportunity to experience before. What a special treat!

The location of Mount Hagen (and Kudjip which is 1 hour away by car) is in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The elevation at Kudjip is about 5200 ft. It is very tropical and mountainous as you can see from the pictures in the slideshow below.

As you can see, the landscape is very dense jungle with no way to drive from Port Moresby to Mount Hagen. It is no wonder that people did not know about the tribes living in the mountains until 90 years ago! It truly is a challenge to get up to the Highlands. If you do want to drive, you have to go from the east coast of the island up to Mount Hagen, which is about a 14 hour drive as the roads are bumpy and curvy to get up the mountains. We were very thankful to only have 2 extra hours on top of our other long flights!