About

About Walindi Plantation Resort

Walindi Plantation Resort is nestled along the shores of a long-standing palm plantation on the northern coast of New Britain, overlooking Papua New Guinea’s renowned Kimbe Bay. Established in 1983, this charming family-owned resort has been creating exceptional dive holidays for 40 years, with three generations taking pride in its operation. From its humble beginnings, Walindi Plantation Resort has evolved into an immensely popular getaway which welcomes guests from all corners of the world.

Visitors to Walindi Plantation Resort are housed in 20 accommodation units, offering space for up to 40 individual guests. The property offers a choice of free-standing bure-style bungalows on the beachfront or plantation house rooms with shared verandahs. Both options were built with sustainability in mind and have been designed to minimise environmental impact while maintaining comfort. 

The Bismarck Sea, where Kimbe Bay is situated, is almost central to the renowned Coral Triangle – meaning Walindi Plantation Resort provides direct access to one of the world’s most biodiverse marine environments. As a result, the overriding mission of this resort’s scuba diving operations is to provide guests with world class underwater experiences and acquaint them with the incredible marine life of Kimbe Bay.

Explore the resort

Walindi Plantation’s Casuarina Restaurant offers three plentiful meals a day, consisting of Western and Asian fare made using local ingredients – including beef produced by the neighbouring plantation. The resort’s bar is located nearby and comes fully-stocked with mixed drinks, beers, a selection of wine, soft drinks, bottled water and snacks. An air-conditioned lounge is also available, featuring comfortable seating and an extensive reference library, along with a small selection of fiction books. Complimentary tea and freshly ground Papua New Guinean coffee are available at all times in the lounge.

Outside, the resort’s swimming pool and sundeck are a favourite place for guests to relax, while ocean swimming is possible from the jetty and beach. Kayaks and stand-up paddleboards are also available, as is snorkelling or freediving equipment. Back on land, birdwatching tours can be organised to nearby rainforests and small islets in Kimbe Bay to discover a host of exotic Bismarck and New Britain endemics. Guests can also hike volcanic peaks, bathe in a thermal river, unearth WWII relics in the rainforest, or visit nearby villages for an authentic insight into local life.

Diving from Walindi Plantation Resort

Walindi Plantation’s onsite dive centre harnesses the knowledge, training and experience of a truly passionate, caring group of talented professional divers. The team does all the heavy lifting – including setting-up, breaking down, and washing equipment – so guests can spend more time relaxing and enjoying the beautiful dive sites. In fact, all guests have to do at the end of the day is step off the boat. The dive centre features a compressor room for refilling tanks, including nitrox blends, and a gear hire room with a full range of dive equipment available for rent. Guests can also undertake a full range of PADI dive courses.

Kimbe Bay offers over 40 different sites to choose from, providing a variety of different dives – from underwater sea-mounts, and sheer walls, to coral gardens and critters. To help guests explore, the dive centre provides three purpose-built boats in the nine-metre range. Each of these vessels comes equipped with protection from the elements, anti-skid floors, rinse buckets, and convenient bordering ladders. What’s more, Walindi Plantation has partnerships with two quality liveaboards operating in the region, giving guests the opportunity to combine their resort stay with extended exploration of Papua New Guinea. 

Conservation

Mahonia Na Dari – or ‘Guardian of the Sea’ – is an NGO founded by the owners of Walindi Resort with the intention of improving awareness of marine and coastal biodiversity in Kimbe Bay through school-based and community education programmes. In collaboration with the Marine Conservation Ecology Lab at James Cook University, Mahonia Na Dari and Walindi Resort initiated a resident researcher programme which facilitates environmental research in Kimbe Bay. The resident researchers are encouraged to engage with guests and will sometimes conduct presentations of their work at the resort.

Walindi Resort additionally allocated land for the creation of a local school and continues to donate time, labour, resources and finances in order to keep the school running. The resort has also installed over 100 moorings in the area, and every dive site visited by the resort’s day boats and liveaboards currently has a mooring in place.