September 2008

Bob CLELAND has come up with the good oil on the Highlands roof-painting 'mystery' alluded to in the last issue. He was stationed at Goroka in 1953 and names Peter MAXTONE-GRAHAM, Brian HEAGNEY and Mick REILLY as the 'artists'. He says he climbed the ridge overlooking the airstrip which afforded him a good view of the hangar roof. At that time FININT had been cleaned off and only EGU was visible. Terry TURNER, then a Nataff kuskus before deserting to Treasury, recalled I.F.G. DOWNS summoning the guilty trio to the District Office for a word or three before putting them back on the hangar roof with the necessary cleaning materials.

There was seemingly no such misleading name painting at Finintegu and the predicament of the RAAF DC3 which landed there in 1952 was solely down to human error. To a considerable degree by whichever Air Force officer declined the friendly offer from Qantas to lend a pilot to assist in landing at Goroka. However, as Terry Turner comments, the exchange between the RAAF pilot informing DCA that he had just landed safely at Goroka and the air traffic controller there ("Have I got news for you....") passed into Highlands folklore.

On the subject of aerial exploits I mentioned in earlier notes that Frank LEIBFRIED had, though in his 60s, enthusiastically learned to fly, piloting his aircraft from Hobart to Bundaberg on one expedition. Another ex-kiap, John O'BRIEN tells me that he had his licence while in his 20s and took every opportunity to fly while in PNG finding it particularly useful for getting around in the Sepik. In retirement John visited the Top End using a Cherokee 6 but at Borroloola on the Gulf coast had a very hairy moment when his engine cut out as he headed for the water. He has been back to PNG but in the '90s was a passenger when someone crash-landed him at Simbai. John is a Canberra resident but after a double heart bypass restricts himself to very occasional flights in the passenger seat of a Tiger Moth. Which is fun when you are 20, less so when you are 74. George OAKES, another retired kiap, who in his youth piloted Moths might agree with that.

Talking of hairy moments the Daulo Pass could offer drivers plenty from time to time but too many landslips have of late closed the Highway which is the lifeline into the Highlands for fuel and stores - and out of it for produce intended for the Lae market and elsewhere. Commenting that the road was built when the heavy tonnage now using it lay decades ahead Don Polye, Minister for Works & Transport, a civil engineer, intends to construct an alternative section from Goroka to Chuave through the Unggai mountains. Since announcing this he has been confronted with huge landslides outside Kundiawa estimated to take a month to clear plus river encroachments on the Highway across the Markham plains. Good luck to Mr Polye.

Unsurprisingly the mining and petroleum companies working in PNG have signed up a number of former kiaps to act as their liasion with local landowners. Amongst these was Dave HINTON who became a CPO in 1968 being stationed initially at Bereina and Kaintiba. In 1979 by then a DO he resigned and established a base in Cairns but spent the next twenty years working in PNG including ownership studies on the Mt Kare goldfield (adjacent to Porgera). This enabled him to co-author, with Andy FLOWERS once of Tari, the recently published and fascinatingly revelatory book titled Mt Kare Gold Rush: PNG 1988-1994. He then did some island-hopping, first to Tasmania and its University where he was awarded an Honours degree in Indonesian language and then to Sulawesi where he is teaching.

Not too long ago Hank NELSON, Emeritus Professor of History and PNGAA member, had recorded nearly 200 books published since 1980 by or about Australians who went to PNG. I asked him if the double century had now been cracked and he sent me a bibliography with the injunction ‘count 'em yourself’. 205 and undoubtedly rising. A good thing.

‘Stayers and Players’ was an expression current in old PNG but rarely heard today. Ken FAIRWEATHER qualifies in that colourful category. At one time a Co-operative Officer at Buin he worked at Ok Tedi post-Independence and at last year's election became the Member for Sumkar in the national Parliament. Now, of course, a PNG citizen he defeated Brigadier Gerry Singirok, hero of the Sandline Affair. One former Member from the Western District to have 'stayed on' is ex-kiap Warren DUTTON. He is chairman of the PNG Rubber Board and with the product fetching high world prices is hopeful that much more than the annual export of 5000 tons can be achieved.

‘Below our feet it's all mulch and boot-sucking mud; above us stained-glass sunlight pierces the treetop canopy’. No, not the Kokoda Track but a lyrical impression from a new and exhausting 3-days trek through the Bainings of East New Britain. It is called the ‘Escape from Rabaul’ trek and was initiated by True North Journeys two years ago. It follows the route taken by members of Lark Force and the NGVR from Kokopo though the mountains to Open Bay following the Japanese invasion in 1942 and draws on Peter Stone's definitive history Hostages to Freedom: The Fall of Rabaul for inspiration. However unlike those starving soldiers today's travellers need no longer fear attacks by the Mokolkols only the mosquitoes which are probably far more hostile.