D’Entrecasteaux Islands

Introducing D’Entrecasteaux Islands

Scattered across a narrow strait from the PNG mainland, the D’Entrecasteaux group was named by French explorer Antoine d’Entrecasteaux, who sailed through in 1793 while searching for his missing compatriot, La Pérouse. The three principal islands, from northwest to southeast, are Goodenough (Nidula), Fergusson (Moratau), and Normanby (Duau). The islands are extremely mountainous, covered by dense jungle and contain a number of active geothermal fields. Sanaroa and Dobu are the most significant of the smaller islands but there are numerous reefs, shoals and atolls.

D’Entrecasteaux islanders are still largely subsistence horticulturalists, living in small, traditional villages and fishing the coastal waters. People of this area participated in the kula ring of exchange and travelled widely to other islands in their sea-going sailing canoes.

The whole archipelago is off-the-beaten-track travel at its best. It can be difficult to contact anyone on the islands because the phones rarely work. Try the Milne Bay Tourist Bureau instead. If you are happy with basic island accommodation, you could spend weeks exploring coastal villages, sleeping with families on sleeping mats and sharing their food. To mount such an expedition, hire one of the dinghies at East Cape (K150 per day, including crew), stock it with a couple of drums of petrol (brought in Alotau where it’s cheaper), some 1kg bags of rice and tinned fish and follow the whales, dolphins or dugongs which live here.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009