Goroka

Goroka lies at sixteen hundred metres in the Eastern Highlands and hosts the best known cultural gathering in Papua New Guinea, the Goroka Show, held over the independence weekend in September. More than a hundred tribal groups arrive in full dress to perform sing-sings, and the Asaro mudmen with their clay helmets come from the valley below. The town has a mild climate, a coffee industry that supplies most of the country's export crop and a small museum of Highlands material culture on the university campus. Show week fills every bed in town and needs booking far ahead.