A Visit to Rempi, north coast of Madang

Peter's house at Wargidan village, Rempie

On Saturday 12^th February, I took a 45minutes PMV ride from town to Rempie at Wargidan community situated along the north-coast of Madang town.


Peter Siroi and village elders

It was around 1700hrs when I arrived at Wargidan community. Peter Siroi, who wanted me to visit his village, was there to welcome me. The village was situated close to a beautiful lagoon made up of three small pristine coral islands to the east which was an ideal snorkeling location for a village get-away! 

During that afternoon, I was able to meet with some of the village elders and clan leaders.  The elders that were present upon my arrival were Kendos Anut former council and current community leader; Francis Ganui current Council; and Mr Buko current inland community leader of the Baitata village.

I brought with me some food stuff and gave to Peter’s family to organize our dinner and hot coffee for the elders.

We sat and discussed some of the issues relating to tourism and identified what they have within their area. Upon discussion, I identified their main products as snorkeling with traditional canoeing, and caving with forest experience towards the inland along Baitata road.

Sunday 13^th February

A beautiful sunrise in the east

Today, I am ready for a real tour experience starting from the coast and to the inland tropical forest adventure!

Spectacular sunrise view from Wargidan village

I woke up early in the morning at around 5:45am in time to witness the spectacular sunrise at Rempie’s seaside view.  In the further east over the horizon, lies Karkar Island and Bagabag Island on the right with a magnificent sunrise view over the lagoon and the islands as calm waves came shoring in.

I had my breakfast with Peter’s family at 7am and left for the island cruise with Peter and his brother in-law, Blaise, on a traditional canoe at around 8am.

Blaise with his brother paddling the canoe

There are three main islands reachable within 10 to 20minutes by dugout canoes and are scattered within the proximity of 200 to 300 meters apart on a linear pattern along the lagoon. This makes it pleasant and ideal for snorkeling with new coral reefs growing near the pristine coral islands and along the lagoon that is also perfect for diving!

A relaxing view within the lagoon to the islands

The three main islands that make up the lagoon are Tadwi island: where part of Robinson Crusoe movie where Pearson with his dog and Man Friday raced with crabs on the island’s beach. Near that island is a wreckage of WW2 budge; Dumdumman island: at the far end, there is a WW2 machine gun remained on the reef; and Damdamowaug island on the far right of the lagoon in the east. Opposite Damdamowaug island towards the mainland shore is a round rock visible under the sea which is traditionally known as Egbainamag – which relates to a legend where a white cockatoo carried the rock from the inland and dropped it into the sea which signifies their ancestors who originally came from the inland. Today, Peter’s family clan occupies both coastal mainland and inland forest.

A glimpse of the beautiful island scenery and coral beach

 We had a good 2hour tour around the islands visiting the WW2 wrecking sites, Robinson Crusoe filmed sites, the pristine beaches and the coral reefs.

Site near the bomb crater left by the Robinson Cruso film

We arrived back at Peter’s place at around 10am before leaving for the Bat Cave near Sempie along the Baitata road at 11am.

On our way along Baitata road just 10minutes walk in from the junction, we made a short visit to another site on the left where Robinson Crusoe’s camp house was bombed in the film where him and Man Friday escaped onto a bridge and over a greenish river. After a 5minutes look around at the remaining bomb crater and the small river, we then continued to the main road to the Bat Cave.

Looking out from the entrance of the Bat Cave

It was about an hour’s walk when we arrived at the Sempie village (Only one house) on the right where Peter’s elder brother lives. We cooled ourselves and drank some freshwater before taking the trek down to the cave site at 12:30pm. It was a 15minutes walk to the small entrance of the Bat Cave at the back and we went past up a ridge into the thick forest filled with insect sounds and tropical plants. It was another 20 to 30minutes walk down the ridge and into the creek witnessing the huge wild hornbills and white cockatoos flying from tree to tree when we arrived at the Bat Cave’s front entrance at 13:15pm.

Inside the Bat Cave

We lit up some bundles of dried coconut leaves and took with us a couple of small torches inside the Bat Cave. The cave was historically used as a hiding spot by the local people during the WW2 and is now the home of thousands of wild bats (smaller to flying foxes). We walked in with our burning lights going upstream a creek that runs out of the mouth of the cave. Upon exploration, we discovered thousands of bats flying everywhere with their shits all over the ground floor – to tell you, this can be very irritating to a first-time visitor to the cave! Inside of the cave is spacious with small droplets of water from couple of solid starlights from the roof of the cave. We did not go in further to other side as we were told not to go further due to the rising water and got back the same direction covering 20meters in.

Local boys showing off their caught bats

We left the Bat Cave at around 1:35pm and followed the creek downstream for another 10minutes walk to a naturally built stairs of a limestone formation at the creek side.

A natural stairs by the limestone formation

The local boys, who were my local guides didn’t resist making use of the mini waterfall by having a cool off in the deep part of the creek. (The creek normally drys out during the dry season). We then left taking another route into the jungle which took us over a 20minutes walk before reaching the main road where a vehicle we arranged was ready to pick us up which ended our great, Madang’s north-coast adventure!

Commentary:

-     destination, easily accisable by road

-     soft adventure

-     traditional cultural performance and singsing with bamboo band (with additional Warrior welcome – a fierce welcome for the foreigners)can be arranged by the villagers

-    there are no guest houses, village homestay is suitable to experience local life and witness how locals go diving for fish at night using tradiotional canoes and home-made spearguns (dry-cell batteries for diving torches are very valuable item for the locals as they will not hesitate to go diving for fish with new battaries put into their torches!) Yo will be surprised to see how skilledful they are in catching fish, one after ther other at night depending on the local weather.