Qualla: Tufi

Tufi: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lofor, CC BY-SA 3.0. The word fjord suggests Norway, not the tropics, but here on the Cape Nelson peninsula of Papua New Guinea the sea has flooded a series of long volcanic valleys, and the result is a coastline that behaves like no other in the country. The inlets are narrow. The water runs 90 meters deep. The walls rise 150 meters from the surface, vertical and furred with moss and orchids. And above the fjords, tucked onto a plateau, sits Tufi - a small town that most Papua New Guineans know from an airline schedule and that most outside visitors reach only by boat. The air here smells of wet forest and salt water. The sound is surf somewhere far below the cliff edge, and the squawk of birds in the canopy just behind you.

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Image: Lofor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tufi: Fjords in a Warm Sea

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lofor, CC BY-SA 3.0. The fjords of Tufi are not glacial like their northern namesakes. They are rias - drowned valleys, carved by freshwater rivers and rain on the flanks of ancient volcanoes, then flooded when the sea rose. The effect is the same, though: narrow sheltered waterways with water deep e...

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Image: Lofor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tufi: The Cloth They Make Here

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lofor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tufi's other name in the region is tapa country. Tapa is bark cloth, made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree - soaked, beaten flat on a wooden anvil, worked until it becomes a sheet that can be painted and folded and worn. The craft exists across Oceania, in Tonga and...

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Image: Lofor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tufi: The Wrecks Below

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lofor, CC BY-SA 3.0. In March 1943, two American PT boats slipped beneath the water off Tufi and never came back up. They had been operating from a temporary base here during the Allied push up the New Guinea coast - small, fast torpedo boats built for hit-and-run strikes against Japanese shipping. H...

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Image: Lofor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tufi: The Forest Above the Cliffs

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lofor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Behind Tufi the ground climbs through rainforest thick enough that paths are cut by feet rather than machines. Somewhere in this forest - increasingly rarely - flies the Queen Alexandra's birdwing, the largest butterfly in the world, with a wingspan that can reach thirty centimet...

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Image: Lofor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tufi: Staying in the Villages

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Larry V. Dumlao, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Tufi Resort sits on the edge of a fjord, its main building blending traditional Papua New Guinean architecture with a modern Australian veranda style, the dining room open to views that do most of the hospitality work on their own. The resort is also the gateway to something ...

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Image: Larry V. Dumlao | CC BY-SA 4.0