Milne Bay


Milne Bay is a huge bay on the southeastern peninsula of Papua New Guinea opening towards east. On the northern side of the bay is the province Capital Alotau. The whole area is karstified and has many caves, some of them are guided on cave trekking tours. There are actually two different kinds of caves.

The Skull Cave contains skulls of native inhabitants, supposedly from pre missionary times. They were used as burial cave for important people. The traditional burial ritual included people being buried upright with a clay pot put over the head. When the heads separated from the body, the pot was removed and the skull was taken to the cave. This was intended as a gesture of respect. This ritual was rather common and so many skull caves exist on Papua New Guinea. So Skull Cave is not a proper name of the cave, but just a description of its use.

The Bat Cave is home to numerous species of bats, up to 9 species of bats have been found in such caves. But there are other interesting troglobites living in the cave, feeding on the bat guano, e.g. several kinds of spiders and cockroaches. Bandicoot, cane toad, eels, prawns, and other cave visitors can be seen. All those caves are undeveloped, require some hiking to reach them and are real caving trips, with wading through chest deep water, climbing and crawling. The equipment is insufficient and the danger to get a tropical disease like histoplasmosis and leptospirosis is high. Also, they are located in almost inaccessible areas which are invaded with the claim to contribute to the conservation of the natural environment. This ecotourism arrogance is in reality the opposite, the damaging of formerly undisturbed habitats.

Probably you followed a link to one of the caves which were listed here before. We found several articles about the local tourism attempts which were in a way promising. But reality is the opposite, after 20 years the websites are down, the information vanished, and the operators do not publish their tours any more. The remaining pages do not publish names of locations of caves which are visited. Some have been stopped for good, or there is a reason why they are shying away from the public. Either way, we have removed all pages and decided to publish a general warning against such offers. We will gladly list any cave tour that provides at least a basic expertise, sustainability and security.