Ambua Lodge

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On a slope overlooking the whole of the Tari valley - home of the world-renowned Huli wigmen in the Southern Highlands province - is the winner of the 1991 Pacific Asia Travel Association’s ‘Pacific Heritage Award’.

This globally acclaimed high profile award was given to the Ambua Lodge when its operational activities were recognised and praised as a “superb example of culturally sensitive and responsible ecological tourism”.

Engulfed by an undisturbed lush mountain rainforest, Ambua Lodge is one of the few wilderness lodges in the country that offers a traveller what he or she dreams of and is an excellent hub for either adventure or exploration.

It offers an extensive adventure program with activities that allows visitors to experience rich traditional cultures, unforgettable wildlife adventure and panoramic scenes.

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Operated by Trans Niugini Tours, the tour arrangements to reach the Lodge are just as the firm’s name suggest – across New Guinea.

Under arrangements with the firm, an adventure - seeking traveler is assured he travels across the New Guinea mainland as his first adventure before going into the cultural, wildlife, trekking and village tour aspects.

True to the description it receives as the “ultimate wilderness accommodation lodge”, Ambua provides an incomparable range of adventurous expeditions that astound and cannot be found anywhere else.

The juxtaposition of wilderness, ancient cultures and luxury is what makes this lodge unique.

Visitors have the chance of participating in various activities including cultural tours, bird watching, nature walks, crossing suspension bridges built from traditional vines and picturesque waterfalls secluded by thick and dense jungle.

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The Huli culture is the most vibrant, intact and colorful to be experienced anywhere in the country.

The Huli people were one of the last tribal groups in the country to be found and brought under government control.


Human hair wigs, colorful and exotic body decorations with bird of paradise feathers and everlasting daisies, face paintings and traditional dancing are what the Huli people are famous for.

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Visitors can see firsthand how the wigs are made.

Young men pay the wigmaker certain gifts to have their hair made into a wig.

The young men continue to visit the wigmaker over time to have their hair grown.

Today, the young men cut off their wigs and sell them, especially to overseas tourists.

The Huli people live in a male - dominated society, where everything small or big has to be controlled and maintained by men,

Separation of men from women has been an integral part of traditional Huli culture for centuries.

Huli society is still governed by sorcery and ancestral spirits in everyday activities.

A traditional spirit dance communicating with the ancestral spirits on the fate of somebody who is about to die will chill any visitor’s spine.

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Ambua Lodge arranges for small group adventure trekking expeditions into the villages.

Ten minutes of an eye catching flight from the newly built airstrip at Ambua are villages where visitors can go bush trekking, spend a night with the friendly people and experience the real Huli village life.

Cultural tours offered by the lodge allow travelers to study the methods of raising children to adulthood, traditional pig farming, gardening, ceremonies, and other daily activities performed by this fierce mountain tribe for centuries.

The lodge itself impresses any visitor with its architectural foundations.

Traditional and modern architecture feature in the 40 spacious individual cabins built in the shape of Highlands round houses.

Varnished Sepik carved pillars and woven Highlands pitpit walls provide for a home atmosphere.

Kunai grass roofing – used for thousands of years in the Highlands – makes visitors wonder why water does not seep through.

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Trans Niugini Tours offers a wide range of traveling packages for visitors to travel across PNG to view and experience the country’s varied geography, rich and spectacular wildlife and cultures.

Whether it is the 13 to 14 nights New Guinea Journey, the 11 to 12 nights New Guinea Experience or New Guinea Classic Adventure, the trip to the land of the Huli Wig men is still in the package.

Other destinations in the program are visits to Karawari Lodge in Sepik and Malolo Plantation Lodge in Madang.

It also includes the floating lodge, the Sepik Spirit.

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Smaller adventure trips to climb Mount Wilhelm at 4500m, the highest land mark in PNG, trekking the foot of the mountain, and Sepik and Karawari canoeing can be arranged through Ambua Lodge or Trans Niugini Tours on telephone (675) 542 1438.

Trans Niugini Tours also has offices in Australia, North America, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Japan.

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