Qualla: Highlands Highway https://qualla.com/highlands-highway en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/p/n/2/highlands-highway-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Highlands Highway https://qualla.com/highlands-highway Highlands Highway: Introduction https://qualla.com/highlands-highway/ Photo credit ChaoticVermillion, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is really only one road in Papua New Guinea that matters, and it climbs. The Highlands Highway - sometimes called the Okuk Highway after a former deputy prime minister - begins at the port of Lae on the Huon Gulf and winds inland for hundreds of kilometres through some of the most densely populated highland country in the world. It is a two-lane road for nearly all its length, often hindered by potholes, landslides, and armed robberies committed by bandits the country knows as raskols. It is also the sole overland lifeline feeding fuel, rice, cement, and mining equipment to more than a million people living above 1,500 metres. When it closes, the Highlands close with it.

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Image: ChaoticVermillion | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/p/n/2/highlands-highway-wp/rpn2-highlands-highway-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Highlands Highway: From the Huon Gulf to the Watershed https://qualla.com/highlands-highway/ Photo credit ChaoticVermillion, CC BY-SA 4.0. From Lae the road heads west up the Markham Valley through Morobe Province - a broad, dry, grassy corridor that is the easiest stretch of the entire highway. At the Markham Valley turn-off, a branch continues north as the Ramu Highway through the Ramu Valley into Madang Province,...

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Image: ChaoticVermillion | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/p/n/2/highlands-highway-wp/rpn2-highlands-highway-from-the-huon-gulf-to-the-watershed.mp3 0:06 2 full Highlands Highway: Over the Daulo and Into the West https://qualla.com/highlands-highway/ Photo credit ChaoticVermillion, CC BY-SA 4.0. Over the Daulo the highway drops into Simbu Province and its capital, Kundiawa, then continues through the Wahgi Valley - the heart of highlands agriculture, where sweet potato gardens climb every slope - into Western Highlands Province. At Mount Hagen, the largest city in the hi...

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Image: ChaoticVermillion | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/p/n/2/highlands-highway-wp/rpn2-highlands-highway-over-the-daulo-and-into-the-west.mp3 0:06 3 full Highlands Highway: Bridges, Aid, and Roadblocks https://qualla.com/highlands-highway/ Photo credit ChaoticVermillion, CC BY-SA 4.0. Keeping the highway open is a running negotiation between weather, geology, and money. In 2006 the Australian government's AusAid programme resurfaced the eastern section from Lae to Goroka. Japanese and Taiwanese projects have rebuilt key bridges. The Porgera Joint Venture spend...

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Image: ChaoticVermillion | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/p/n/2/highlands-highway-wp/rpn2-highlands-highway-bridges-aid-and-roadblocks.mp3 0:06 4 full Highlands Highway: When the Mountain Wins https://qualla.com/highlands-highway/ Photo credit ChaoticVermillion, CC BY-SA 4.0. Landslides and washouts are not rare events on the Highlands Highway; they are a routine feature of it. In April 2008, three separate points along the Simbu Province section became impassable at different times. The worst of those failures destroyed a 150-metre stretch of roadway...

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]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/p/n/2/highlands-highway-wp/rpn2-highlands-highway-when-the-mountain-wins.mp3 0:06 5 full Highlands Highway: A Country That Depends on Two Lanes https://qualla.com/highlands-highway/ Photo credit ChaoticVermillion, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most roads in Papua New Guinea are local, short, and seasonal. There is no rail network of consequence. The Highlands Highway is the one continuous overland thread binding the country's second-largest port to its most populous highland provinces, and nearly everything that moves ...

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]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/p/n/2/highlands-highway-wp/rpn2-highlands-highway-a-country-that-depends-on-two-lanes.mp3 0:06 6 full