Goroka

Goroka sits at around 1,600 metres in the Eastern Highlands, a town built around coffee: the Asaro and Bena valleys around it grow a substantial share of the country's crop and the mills and buyers are here. The J K McCarthy Museum holds a good regional collection of highland artefacts, pottery, weapons and photographs from the first contact period in the 1930s, when patrol officers reached valleys that had been unknown to the outside world. The Goroka Show, first held in 1957, is the oldest of the sing-sings and takes place around the independence weekend in September, with a hundred or more groups performing in the showground in full dress.

What you actually see

• The Goroka Show - the September sing-sing, the oldest in the country.
• The McCarthy Museum - the highland collection and first-contact photographs.
• The coffee trade - the mills and buyers around the town.
• The market - the daily produce market of the valley.

When to go

September for the Goroka Show around independence weekend, which is when the town fills and accommodation must be booked far ahead; May to October otherwise for the drier weather.

Honest expectations

Accommodation around the show sells out months ahead. Outside show week the town has the museum and the market and little else. Movement is by arranged transport. The Highlands Highway journey is long and conditions vary.

Nearby

The Asaro valley lies west; Mount Hagen is further west along the highway.