Sepik Journey: Travels in Papua New Guinea

Into the heart of the island

Village on the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea, early morning. © Bronwen Scott

Years ago, I watched a BBC television series called ‘River Journeys’. It did what it said on the tin: the programme accompanied adventurers, writers, journalists, and academics on journeys along rivers. William Shawcross made his way up the Mekong, Germaine Greer travelled the Sao Francisco, Russell Braddon the Murray. In the opening episode, explorer Christina Dodwell paddled down the threshing waters of the Wahgi River in Papua New Guinea. To get to the headwaters of the Wahgi, which rises in the Central Highlands and flows south, Dodwell first sailed up the Sepik River. The Sepik also rises in the Highlands, but runs in the other direction to open into the Bismarck Sea. At 1,125 kilometres, it is the longest river in New Guinea.

Because I am neither an intrepid white water rafter nor particularly adventurous, what caught my imagination was not the terrifying Wahgi but the Sepik winding its way through the lowlands. I desperately wanted to see this river and its wildlife. The programme went to air in 1985. Thirty-four years later, thanks to my friend Tonia Cochran who runs Inala Nature Tours, I finally went on my own river journey along the Sepik.

We flew from Mount Hagen across the rugged spine of the island to land at a short airstrip cut out of the forest. From there, we took a boat…