ASOPA PEOPLE

Cruise ship heads south & goes south

Bill Welbourne

You may recall my article 'South to the Antarctic' which appeared in the January 2006 issue of The Mail. In it I mentioned the voyage I took with my son, Tony, to the ice continent in a small 75-metre expedition ship, MS Explorer, fondly known as 'The Little Red Ship'.

This historic polar vessel built in 1969 is no more after hitting an iceberg and sinking last week. Two years on Tony and I missed all the excitement of passengers abandoning ship and being rescued by the Norwegian vessel Nordnorge.

Voice of America reported: “Nordnorge picked up 154 people - all the passengers and crew of the Explorer. The captain of the Norwegian ship said the passengers and crew were cold and wet but in good condition despite spending four hours in icy, windswept seas off the South Shetland Islands. By Friday evening, several hours after the rescue operation was complete, the stricken Explorer disappeared beneath the Antarctic waves.”

Dave & Elissa on the road in the Mid East

Dubbo Dave Kesby

Amman, Jordan: Writing this sitting at Amman airport en route to Dubai. Elissa is at a separate check-in being frisked by a woman in uniform behind a black curtain. Jordan is a great country and the people very friendly. The highlight was Petra, a hidden city discovered by a Swiss bloke in the early 1800s when he tricked the Bedouins into leading him in to look at it. The pic shows us lookin’ over Jordan: on the road with son Pete and fiancée Beau on top of a monastery path in Petra with a view to Israel. We’re off to Dusseldorf today on Pete's flight, God willing, or as they say here, Enshallah.

FLIGHTS TO RABAUL

Bruce Alexander of the East New Britain Chamber of Commerce reports that Air Niugini is initiating a direct international Cairns-Rabaul flight on 9 April. In urging people to support what he terms “this brave initiative”, Bruce says: “This is a very exciting and positive step for the East New Britain Province and we are grateful to Air Niugini for this rare opportunity to prove ourselves as an international gateway to the New Guinea Islands.” Tickets cost 1,755 kina ($A730) per person return. Bookings can be made through Air Niugini or your travel agent.

RARE MUSEUM FIND

Carolyn Newton and her husband, keen readers of The Mail, were in Rabaul aboard the Oceanic Discoverer at the same time Ingrid and I were there on the Orion last October. Unlike us, though, Carolyn visited the old New Guinea Club museum, where she took the accompanying photo. It commemorates Gough Whitlam’s notorious 1969 visit to Rabaul with an image of the great man and some words of mine crafted for some other occasion. I must say, at the vibrant age of 62, the last thing I expected was to find myself in a museum.

ORION ON GETAWAY

MV Orion's Papua New Guinea expedition cruise will feature on Channel 9's Getaway travel program tonight. Channel 9 sent a TV crew to cover Orion's first PNG encounter last March, so if you're interested in a current view of Rabaul, Kavieng, Sepik, Madang, Tufi and Milne Bay, as well as experiencing a taste of shipboard life on this flash 100-passenger vessel, tune in to Channel 9 at 7.30 pm (DST).

MEET SARINA BRATTON

When I lived in the Sydney harbourside suburb of Clifton Gardens 20 years ago, my upstairs neighbour was Cunard shipping executive Sarina Bratton. Sarina went on to become the world’s first woman to found a shipping line - Orion Expedition Cruises – and in today’s log I briefly tell her story. But first a television program you might want to watch. In March this year, the popular Channel 9 travel show Getaway sent a film crew (anchored by presenter Jules Lund) to experience MV Orion’s inaugural expedition voyage in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

As the first Getaway segment went to air last Thursday, I was aboard Orion on the last leg of a most splendid journey around the islands to our north. But I’ll be tuning in for the second segment which goes to air this week [Thursday 9 November, 7.30 pm DST in the Eastern States].

Sarina Bratton is the founder and managing director of the five-star ‘soft adventure’ Orion Expedition Cruises, which also has financial backing from Marilynne Paspaley of the eponymous pearls to property group. Marilynne, an engaging and personable former stage and television actor, and husband Gary occupied Orion’s owners’ suite on the first leg of our PNG cruise.

Sarina Bratton now lives on Sydney’s northern beaches with her husband and daughter. An outstanding athlete, at age 17 she held national sporting titles in gymnastics, diving and trampoline. But when injury cut short her sporting career, she took a working holiday in Europe which led directly to her involvement in tourism.

On International Women’s Day this year Sarina won the coveted Australian Veuve Clicquot Award to recognise her leadership skills and contribution to tourism. Presenting the award, Janet Holmes à Court said, “Through Sarina’s persistence and perseverance she is creating a company that is exciting and innovative. Her vision to develop Australia as a cruise destination through the development of innovative itineraries has generated significant economic benefit.”

Two years ago Sarina’s dream of starting her own line became a reality with the launch of the Orion. She nurtured every detail from the galley to the engine room, hand-picked destinations, selected top expedition staff (including the inimitable Justin Friend) and worked with local communities to allow the ship to access those 'paths less travelled'.

“It’s tough starting a new business,” says Sarina. “You work very long hours and you have to put everything into it, which I’m not afraid of. I’ve got the best ship for the job and I’ve got a fantastic team working with me.”

THE LAST ISLAND

Samarai, Wednesday - After lunch we clambered into the Zodiac for a two kilometre ride from Orion to Kwato Island, the last island of this voyage. The Kwato settlement was established by the London Missionary Society’s Charles Abel in 1891. He practised a practical Christianity and, while the Abel family has gone, their heritage lives in an active church and an outstanding boat and house building tradition. Charles Abel chose a fine place for his mission: petite islands, craggy mountains, azure sea.

It’s not wholly correct to say the Abels have gone. From the beach, we walked underneath a leafy canopy of raintrees and hibiscus up a wide, well-formed track which switchbacked to the top of a hill. Here stood a fine stone and wood church with a commanding view of Samarai and the China Strait. Just behind the church was a small graveyard with a monument testifying to the earthly remains of Charles Abel, his wife Beatrice (Bea) and many family members, the most recent who had died just this year.

To my surprise, also in this graveyard were the remains of my onetime Government Broadcasting Service colleague, John Smeeton, and his wife Marjorie (Badi) Smeeton. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose, since I knew that John (and his broadcaster son Ian) had come from Kwato. John, a gentle and avuncular man in his sixties when I knew him, died in 1991 at the age of 82. He rests in a truly exquisite place.

Earlier in the day, we walked around the decaying remains of Samarai. A fellow guest on Orion, retired planter Jim Grose, who was a member of Papua New Guinea’s first House of Assembly from 1964-68, told me he had last been here as a passenger on the Malaita in 1949. Samarai, along with Port Moresby, was one of Papua’s original towns. A busy trading post which later had the unusual distinction of being bombed by the RAAF in WW2 to prevent the Japanese making use of its buildings.

The 24 hectare Samarai Island is one of PNG’s heritage listed areas. Not that such nomination seems to counts for much. Many of the original buildings and warehouses stand, but they have been allowed to deteriorate for lack of money. The once fine wharf is broken and unusable. People continue to live in Samarai, and the power station still runs, but – apart from the faint promise of an embryonic cultured pearl business, the place is fading away.

Samarai is somewhat symbolic of today’s Papua New Guinea. Removed from the aggrandising opportunities provided to the elite, bereft of readily extractable resources, almost beyond government, it is largely reliant upon itself for a meagre level of survival. It’s a real shame.

DEATH BY FJORD

Fergusson Island, Tuesday – Two days, two methods of suicide. Yesterday Orion made a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to anchor in narrow, reef fraught Tufi fjord. With a big swell running, the harbour bottom offering no purchase for a dragging pick and, at one point, our stern hovering just eight metres from the reef, Captain Peter Greenhow ultimately opted for prudence and anchored well offshore.

We surfed back into the fjord on a Zodiac and, after disembarking at Tufi jetty [left], began the uphill walk to Suicide Point, two kilometres away. The Tufi area is beset by drought and the coffee trees are dying but it wasn’t lack of rain that bothered William, our guide. He said he felt ashamed of the decrepit state of the buildings at the old Tufi government station. “There’s no money, no maintenance. Sometimes we wish the kiaps were back,” he said.

Suicide Point lies on a prominent bluff overlooking two fjords; perhaps 300 metres above sea level. Infamous as a place where spurned lovers swallow dive into oblivion, it offers a panoramic view stretching as far as the Owen Stanley Range, silhouetted like a cardboard cut-out against the bright morning sky. Far beneath us a clutch of outriggers lazily tracked a school of fish.

Overnight we made passage to Fergusson Island in the D’Entrecasteaux group where Maria (‘Sound of Music’) von Trapp was resident 50 years ago. Until arriving at this blissful spot, I had no idea that Fergusson is known for its geysers, hot springs, mud pools and insect-eating plants. The locals use Dei Dei’s sulphuric water boiling up from unknown depths for cooking, washing and as a source of salt.

Here, in bygone years, the islanders would also boil captives alive before eating them on the spot, bones and offal tossed into another scalding pool nearby where they would be quickly reduced to consommé. There was an incident a couple of years back where a young village woman, upset after an argument, threw herself into the biggest geyser. Death by fjord; death by geyser. Add these to the list of bizarre ways of ending it all.

[Photo: Ingrid poses before one of the more diminutive Dei Dei geysers]

WHERE DOLPHINS SPIN

Tami Islands, Sunday – These islands, situated perhaps ten kilometres east of Finschhafen, are best known for their great natural beauty and across-the-grain bowl carvings which are traded as far south as the Trobriand Islands.  Orion anchored just outside the reef and, as we headed to shore, dozens of high spirited dolphins leaped and spun around the Zodiacs in magical display. I write this as we depart the islands and, through the stateroom window, a large dolphin pod is racing alongside the ship as we begin our passage to Tufi.

We waded ashore from the Zodiac to be greeted by a singsing group which was providing a rhythmic counterpoint to another ‘theatre’ group which, in music and dance, told a series of stories about the Tami people in a ‘set’ framed to represent a canoe. In all my years in Papua New Guinea, I’d never seen such a precisely staged or exquisitely danced performance.

Local villagers dragged rough hewn desks and benches from the nearby schoolhouse to provide seating in a natural limestone amphitheatre. The rhythms and melodies were hypnotic. “I think I was here in a previous life,” murmured a fellow passenger.

After the dancing, Ingrid and I inspected the local elementary school, taking in the Grade 6 classroom at close quarters. I thought I’d share a couple of interior shots with fellow ex-PNG chalkies who I know have a passion for such pedagogical minutiae.

Then, accompanied by 20 fellow passengers, Ingrid and I clambered five metres up a rugged limestone sea cliff and picked our way through gardens pockmarked with rocky outcrops of ancient coral. Then down the other side for a flat 20-minute walk along a flotsam strewn path (thongs and parts thereof being the most common items) to a village of about one hundred people.

Here a new Lutheran church was being constructed – the only western material building in the place. “It’s cost 20,000 kina so far,” a villager confided, “and we’ve run out of money.” Alongside it, the old bush material church was cuter, cooler - and cheaper.

Then a walk-and-wade around the island before variously motoring and canoeing to a beach where the galley crew had established on of Orion’s spectacular desert island lunches – rum punch and barbecued tiger prawns. I’ll let you into a secret, travel doesn’t come much better than this!

PHIL CHARLEY COUNTRY

Madang, Saturday – Yesterday Ingrid and I disembarked Orion, along with 60 other life-jacketed passengers looking like a seniors invasion force, to ride eight bucking Zodiacs for half an hour through a four foot swell and across a boiling reef. I use the word ‘bucking’ advisedly. Our destination was Watam, a fine example of a traditional village located a few kilometres east of the mouth of the Sepik River.

After such an arduous trip, it wasn’t hard to understand why Watam, a community of about 200 people, doesn’t see many tourists. Entering the small protected harbour we were surprised to see over 30 canoes and banana boats and the village teeming with over 1,000 people and half a dozen police, some armed with AK47s. For a fee of 30 kina a group, the Watam people had invited neighbours for 50 km around to establish a mass impromptu artefacts market. With so many tribal groups intermingling, the police were there for obvious reasons.

I was escorted around Watam by a new found friend, Arnold, from whom I bought some artefacts and who, with that spontaneous generosity of Papua New Guineans, reciprocated by giving Ingrid and me gifts. Spending an hour or so conversing with Arnold allowed me to shake the cobwebs from my rusty Pidgin and, for his part, he seemed well pleased with the dialogue.

With the singsing going flat out, a 14-man pandanus and pitpit ‘dragon’ bouncing up and down at the village entrance and a lapun meri painting everyone’s face with an indelible red mark which will require a skin graft to remove, it took the ship’s passengers no time to get into the spirit of the day.

Last night we sailed abeam of Manam Island [left], still in eruption and its population resettled on the mainland, and Karkar Island before entering Madang Harbour at seven this morning. Although its public infrastructure is deteriorating, Madang remains one of the South Pacific’s prettiest towns and it must surely be one of the most prosperous, with tourism and agriculture clearly flourishing. The sweet smell of copra hangs in the air and, despite whelming humidity, it remains the most pleasant of towns to wander around.

Some 35 years ago Phil Charley ran the radio broadcasting station in Madang after coming from the same role in Goroka. With these two postings, I always reckoned Phil had the best of it and, on visiting Madang for the first time in over 40 years, I see no reason to change my mind. Meanwhile, life at sea on this luxurious expedition vessel remains vibrant, as you can see from this pic of Ingrid with captain and self-proclaimed ‘driver’ Captain Peter Greenhow.

THE END FOR RABAUL?

Bismarck Sea, Thursday - Orion wound her way out of Simpson Harbour yesterday evening on her way to the Sepik. Since our arrival early Monday, Tavurvur volcano continued to belch a thick cloud of black ash which the prevailing south-easterly caused to drift remorselessly over Rabaul leaving the town, and us, grubby and sulphuric. The ash gritted between my teeth and a medical condition, which I will call ‘Tavurvur Throat’, could only be soothed by the application of a large libation of ice cold SP beer.

It was on the long, hot and dusty walk from Orion to the Hamamas Hotel (around which there is a story) that the future of Rabaul became clear to me. On Malaguna Avenue I again met the middle-aged Tolai man from Matupit Island , in the shadow of Tavurvur. I’d encountered Matthias when Ingrid and I were out walking on the first day. He’d rushed to greet me yelling “G’day Bill! Where are you from?” To Matthias everyone was Bill.

He was now standing alongside a pick-up truck parked in front of Seeto’s decrepit trade store at the town’s western fringe. In the back of the truck squatted a group of ten glum men. At their feet, a few bush knives, sarifs, kulau and other possessions. The only good cheer came from Matthias. “G’day Bill!” he shouted. I asked him where they were going. To the New Matupit, Matthias told me, a resettlement area in the hills near Vunakabi beyond the Burma Road.

They were giving up on Matupit. The most recent eruption had destroyed most of their canoes and generated a tsunami they feared might annihilate the village. No one was hurt but they’d had enough. They were voluntarily taking a step that protracted government persuasion since the 1994 eruption had failed to elicit. Demoralised, they were abandoning Matupit for good. They were miserable – and it showed.

“You were in Rabaul in 1970, Bill,” barked Matthias happily. “They are leaving. Give them some words.” So I stumbled my way through an inadequate speech in Pidgin about how sad I felt for them but I had driven past their new home yesterday and it was beautiful place with rich soil and fine trees and I was sure they would find it a good and safe home. I did not sound, and I am sure I did not look, convincing.

Matthias, however, was pleased. “He was Radio Rabaul”, he announced to the men. I wished him luck, we shook hands and went our separate ways. When the Matupit islanders start leaving, I thought, that’s the end for Rabaul. Of course, for so long as ships can still enter the harbour, there will always be a port. But there is unlikely to be a Rabaul community.

A fellow passenger, Bryan Grey, Ingrid and I finally trudged into the Hamamas Hotel for a welcome cleanser or two. Owner Bruce Grant had saved his investment in 1994 by shovelling ash of the roof faster than it fell. It’s now the last intact building in this part of town. The ash fell constantly as we were there and, while it won’t drive out Grant, another blow to tourism might.

People in Rabaul are talking about Vulcan erupting again and about a new underwater volcano, Togirgir, south of Vulcan, emerging. They’re worried and the Matupit villagers are leaving. It’s just possible we’re witnessing the end of Rabaul.

Photo: House in 2/22nd Street where we lived in Rabaul in 1970 [Ingrid Jackson]

THE REMNANTS OF RABAUL

Rabaul, Tuesday - Ingrid and I were out on the forward deck just in time to see Tavurvur erupt. As Orion approached Simpson Harbour at 5.30 am yesterday, a dense column of black ash spiralled rapidly through the cloud layer reaching about 8,000 feet before being pushed away and diluted by the prevailing south-easterly. Fortunately for Rabaul the ash was directed away from the town.

After some stuffing around with an overloaded local telephone system, I eventually caught up with my old mate and boss Sam Piniau – the first and former chairman of the PNG National Broadcasting Corporation. Sam now trades around the Gazelle Peninsula in cocoa and vanilla and is a long-time member of the PNG Sports Commission, a job which takes him to Port Moresby four times a year. At 68, he’s in good shape and the 30 years since we’d last seen each other hadn’t blunted the edge of our relationship.

Sam drove Ingrid and me through the bleak wasteland that is the new Rabaul, the occasional skeletal structure being the only sign that, before Tavurvur and Vulcan erupted simultaneously in 1994, a town once stood here. The once splendid boulevarde that was Mango Avenue is now a goat track. What was the only three storey structure in town, the District Office, has been obliterated. Radio East New Britain is a roofless shell. “I told Tom Pearson [one time NBC director of engineering and construction] not to give it a flat roof”, Sam joked.

We then drove out of town and took the long way to Kokopo: up the Burma Road to reach a plateau containing neat villages, substantial houses and rich cultivation. This I recognised. The Gazelle Peninsula, despite Rabaul’s demise, remains progressive, busy and comparatively wealthy. The education system is strong. The churches are active. The politics, as always, dynamic.

Reaching Kokopo, we called in at a small seaside restaurant for lunch. Here I met Francis Rangatin, the son of Chris, the NBC’s first director of news, who died last year. Death. When old mates get together, the subject they move to before most others is old mates. And many of our old Papua New Guinean mates have died, a substantial number after suffering from diabetes and losing one or more limbs. Over a cold SP beer and a meal of fresh fish, we pondered these and many more matters.

Later, in our stateroom, back on Orion, Ingrid remarked how Sam and Francis knew much more about Australia than Australians knew about PNG. And how they implicitly understood it would be the quality of the personal relationships that would improve the strained and testy conversation between our countries. John Howard and Alexander Downer take note.

THE DIRECTOR WRITES

Off Bougainville, Sunday – It’s a good day to spend at sea. As Orion makes her passage from Gizo to Rabaul the clouds are low, visibility is poor and it’s raining. Somewhere to the east is Bougainville - home to my family and me for three years in the early seventies, when I was manager of Radio Bougainville.

Around 1972, PNG Director of Education, Dr Ken McKinnon, visited Kieta and, through the radio station, I did him a small favour, to which he quipped: “I’d expect nothing less from an ex-teacher!

The other day my daughter Sally, a journalist with The Australian newspaper, interviewed Ken, who is the long-standing chairman of the Australian Press Council. Sally mentioned ASOPA PEOPLE to him and Ken wrote a comment to this blog, which I will amplify by reproducing here:

“Until Sally sent me the ASOPA URL information, I had no idea there was an active internet blogging facility for ex PNG people, so I am following your travels with interest. I can beat your thirty year reunion with PNG, having first landed in Port Moresby in early May 1954 after an ASOPA course between January and April.

“My Sydney sojourn came after two years at Oodnadatta, so was mostly a time for savouring the offerings of the city - not neglecting the ASOPA luminaries such as James Macauley and Camilla Wedgewood.

“Anyway, at the beginning of 1955 I was posted as Area Education Officer in the Milne Bay District based at Samarai (Alotau did not exist) and got around the Trobriands, Misima etc.

“I see you are going to Rabaul and meeting Sam Piniau there. Remember me to him, as I have strong memories of him initiating me into the Duk-duk society, which cost me a fascinating afternoon of dancing and later several fathoms of shell money. More when I have time and memories come back.”

MAROVO MEANDERINGS

Marovo Lagoon, Friday - Jill and Grant Kelly have spent 25 years developing and then enhancing their small but exquisite resort on Uepi (you-pee) Island in the Western District of the Solomon Islands. Being in a remote part of the country, almost at the end of the line, they don’t make a lot of money but live a fine life catering to the requirements of scuba divers, expedition travellers and people who simply want to drop out for a while. And, after more than a quarter of a century, they feel a close connection to the natural environment and to the native people who live on the tiny coral islands arranged necklace-like around Marovo Lagoon.

On board Orion earlier today I watched [on the ABC’s excellent Australia TV Network] Alexander Downer fulminate against the governments of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. He also fulminated against the Australian Labor Party, which he accused of “supporting foreigners” as if this was a most heinous crime.

With Downer’s petulance still on my mind, I took the Zodiac to shore, where Ingrid and I walked into the centre of the island on a rough hewn track before returning to the resort for a refreshing local lager. There I talked with Jill and Grant Kelly about Solomons’ politics, asking them about the usefulness of Downer’s megaphone diplomacy in addressing the serious problems Australia finds in its immediate neighbourhood.

They were ambivalent: saying Downer’s remonstrations against the poor governance of these nations was understandable but that it wasn’t clear exactly how this would fix relationships that Australia  had allowed to deteriorate over many years.

Marovo Lagoon is an hour in a plane and another 30 minutes by speedboat from Honiara’s troubled politics and, while the Marovo people know and are concerned about what’s going on, it doesn’t affect them directly. But I couldn’t help contrast the human values realised by the Kelly’s in developing a mature and mutually fruitful relationship with the people of Marovo Lagoon and Australia’s failure to do likewise on the larger diplomatic canvass. It reflects poorly on the competence of Australia’s politicians that relations with our regional neighbours should be in such an unhappy and volatile state.

Photo: Ingrid on the Uepi track

I WENT BACK THERE, BP

Trobriand Islands, Wednesday – After spending yesterday in Deboyne Lagoon in the Louisiade Archipelago (mostly on deserted Nivani Island variously sea kayaking, roaming around a long abandoned and overgrown coconut plantation and snorkelling above a ditched WW2 Zero), at seven this morning Orion anchored off Kitava Island in the Trobriands.

Seventy passengers and crew boarded seven Zodiacs which, en masse, as local custom dictates, headed for shore and a traditional dance welcome from the Kitava islanders, including a group of pubescent boys who were clearly embarrassed by the whole thing and fled into the bush the moment their dance concluded.

Ingrid and I then went on an hour’s walk into the hills to pretty Kumwagea village – clean, neat and with scores of blossoming frangipanis forming an avenue through its centre. At the entrance to the village was Kitava Primary School, established in 1962 and with the original head teacher’s quarters rather decrepit but still in use.

It was here that John Peter, a man from nearby Lalele village, befriended me. We got talking about the school, which he had attended in the late 1960s. “It’s not the same now,” he complained, “they don’t teach in English anymore. The kids don’t learn it and they get pushed out before high school”. “Who taught you?” I asked. “At first an Australian,” he replied. “What was his name?” “Mr White.” “Mr Brian White?” John Peter looked at me surprised. “Yes, he said, “that was his name.” When I mentioned that I knew Brian well and that he had died just a few months ago, a single fat tear rolled down John Peter’s cheek.

Brian (BP) White was an esteemed and much loved colleague on the ASOPA Class of 1962-63. He and I taught together briefly at Mandi in the Sepik before he was posted to Milne Bay. He was assigned to Kitava Primary T in the mid sixties a couple of years after.

It was on Kitava, as I understand the story, that Brian met his wife Nammie who continues to live in the family home at Meringandan outside Toowoomba. It is on Kitava that a yam house still stands. A yam house holding Brian’s gift of the prized local product given when he wed Nammie and which he never bothered to collect.

I paused for some minutes at the school, standing silently beside Brian’s bungalow perched on a small rise at one corner. The scene is peaceful and picturesque: classrooms on two sides; teachers’ houses on two sides; a lush soccer field between; large shade trees around the perimeter, bare patches beneath scuffed clean by generations of resting students; a school bell rendered from an old gas container. I struck it three times and called assembly. “That’s for you, BP,” I said.

Photos by Ingrid Jackson: Kumwagea village; Kitava School sign; John Peter near Brian White's bungalow and empty yam house.

SWEET DUSTY ALOTAU

Alotau, Monday - I was fortunate to awake early enough to catch a first shrouded glimpse of the Papuan coast 30 years after taim igo pinis in 1976. It was a sentimental moment which recalled my first arrival in TPNG in 1963: a mysterious and misty coastline holding promise of great adventure. Promise, I hasten to add, which was fully redeemed.

About an hour or so later Ingrid and I were breakfasting on the aft deck as Orion entered the China Strait, cruising within hailing distance of little villages and passing abeam of diminutive Samarai with its massive copra sheds.

We berthed at Alotau, the Milne Bay provincial capital [left], at 11 am to be greeted by a local singsing group belting kundus like there was no tomorrow. An hour later Ingrid and I were ashore walking around the dusty streets of what appears to be a poor and run down township. The prominent presence of guards around any building related to banking, petrol and beer evidenced security concerns although the people retain a customary friendliness.

As I happened to be passing by, I called in at Radio Milne Bay and said g’day to assistant manager Milela Gisawa, 27 years in the service of the National Broadcasting Corporation, which I’m proud to say I helped establish in 1973. That's me posing at the station entrance.

The main road through Alotau, the boat harbour and the market were crowded with purveyors of betel nut, leaf and lime – seemingly a staple of life and a driver of the economy.

After an hour we ended up at Napatana Lodge, on the edge of town, where manager Edna honoured her claim to “serve the coldest beer in Alotau” and I quenched my thirst on my first SP brown in three decades.

We trudged back to Orion with the afternoon heat starting to stake its claim. Along the road we encountered a few interesting signs [left] and scores of warm and welcoming people. The sweetness of the welcome lingers. The dust washed easily off my shoes.

IN PAPUAN WATERS

Coral Sea, Sunday – There is something very calming about the irregular motion of a ship ploughing across a long rolling swell. Awakening as usual at 3.30 am for some night-time pondering (like ‘why do I keep waking at 3.30 am?’) I can feel Orion moving around me. It’s like being gently rocked in a giant cradle.

Yesterday evening, after Australian Security, Customs and Migration conspired to render meaningless the word ‘efficiency’, Orion slipped casually out of Cairns with the city and its embracing hills slowly drifting from view. With Beethoven’s seventh on the stateroom CD revving me up, I was overflowing with anticipation.

At Trinity Wharf, waiting for Australian Security etc to do their thing, I spoke with a young East Sepik immigration officer who’d flown from Moresby to process passports for tomorrow morning’s landfall at Alotau. She agreed she had one a great job. And she was very proud that her boss was Prime Minister Michael Somare.

Orion is not full: there are 59 passengers on board of a potential 100. But there’s not a bed available for the second leg out of Rabaul. The old New Guinea hands obviously set to come to the party. Few travellers on this Cairns to Rabaul sector are old TPNG hands. Most being Aussies of my age group wanting to experience the delights of expedition travel.

As we near the Papuan coast the afternoon has brought rain and I write this log to the theme from ‘Titanic’ (My Heart Will Go On). It should’ve been played through the ship’s Tannoy (I’m acclimatising to maritime life) during this morning’s lifeboat drill.

We enter Alotau at dawn tomorrow. Here, in the words of Field-Marshal Sir William Slim, "Australian troops … inflicted on the Japanese their first undoubted defeat on land. Of all the allies, it was the Australians who first broke the invincibility of the Japanese army”.

SHIP COMES IN

Cairns, Saturday - MY Orion berthed at Trinity Wharf in Cairns right on 7 o'clock this morning after a passage from Darwin from where she had cruised the Kimberleys and Timor. Her raked bow and sleek lines give Orion the most elegant appearance; her diminutive size perfect for expedition cruising.

With the pilot in charge, the ship glided down a smooth and silvery Trinity inlet, passing a scene of considerable devastation as the old wharf  is demolished, probably to make way for some monolithic high rise. Then Orion demonstrated her great manoeuvrability by crabbing sideways into the assigned berth at Trinity 2. Piled on the stern deck the six Zodiacs that will ferry us to shore on the many 'wet landings' we'll be needing to make in Papua New Guinea.

As I write this, the revictualling is already taking place, so those great Hunter reds, exquisite Margaret River chardonnays and Serge Dansereau inspired meals will be safely ensconced by the time we board at 3 o'clock this afternoon. Meanwhile we'll go hunting in the Cairns CBD for a few good books. And I need to buy a cheap but waterproof wristwatch as I don't think my present timepiece - a Palm Pilot - is really all that suited for travel by Zodiac and jumping off rocky beaches.

Photos: Ingrid Jackson

THAT PNG TRIP IN FULL

A port by port account of the voyage Ingrid and I are about to take around Papua New Guinea.

12-14 October: Cairns. Promotes itself as the “safest tropical city in the world” although I don’t intend to test that assertion by crossing a croc infested river at midnight with a raw steak in my back pocket. Rated the third most popular tourist destination in Australia after Sydney and Brisbane.

16 October: Alotau. The scenic capital of PNG’s Milne Bay Province is located in the area where the invading Japanese army suffered their first land defeat in the Pacific war in 1942, even before the Kokoda Trail battle.

17 October: Deboyne Lagoon in the Louisiade Archipelago is home to the islands' master canoe builders. It had a brief role as a Japanese base during the Battle of the Coral Sea, when the Japanese invaded taking three Australian Army signallers prisoner. The four zeros that itched in the lagoon during the battle are clearly visible to snorkellers.

18 October: Trobriand Islands. The famed ‘islands of love’. Not even the missionaries have been able to alter the Islanders’ view that their place is a sensual paradise. Their culture of self-reliance and magic has changed little over generations.

20 October: Gizo, in the west of the Solomon Islands is 350 kilometres from Honiara, is a small town of 3,000 spread over the southern end of a small island. One report notes: “It is a fairly busy little town, with lots of cars and trucks moving about during the day. The only noise at night were the dog fights about 2 am and the 3 am roosters”.

21 October: Kennedy Island. A picturesque speck in the ocean, formerly known as Plum Pudding Island, was renamed in honour of a famous castaway. In August 1943 the US motor torpedo boat PT109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. Amongst the 11 survivors who swam to shore was its commander - one John F Kennedy.

23 – 25 October: Rabaul. My 1970 stamping ground (Assistant Manager, Radio Rabaul), when the Mataungan Association confronted John Gorton’s government with serious civil strife. Devastated by a volcanic eruption in 1994 and experienced another just five days ago when Tavurvur blew its top.

27 October: Sepik River. My first PNG posting as a young teacher in 1963 (I arrived a week before John Kennedy’s assassination) was to Wewak in the Sepik District. At 1,126 km the Sepik is the longest river in PNG and is navigable for most of its length. The tribes living along the river are noted for their magnificent carvings and elaborate manhood initiation ceremonies.

28 October: Madang boasts that it is “the prettiest town in the South Pacific". First settled by the Germans in the 19th century, its peninsula setting is a showplace of parks, waterways, luxuriant shade trees and sparkling tropical islands.

29 October: Tami Islands. Offshore from Lae, the Tami islanders are renowned for their carving. Former kiap Paul Oates has written: “The Tami Islands were wood carvers par excellence. A difference between their carvings and other areas was how they carved the wood across the grain, not lengthways. Their turtle bowls were much sought after”.

30 October: Tufi is 250 km east of Port Moresby and lies between Lae and Alotau on the tip of Cape Nelson. The Lonely Planet Guide calls it "PNG’s best kept secret". Tufi is a place of great natural beauty and is located among spectacular volcanic fjords.

31 October: D’Entrecasteaux Islandsare located near the eastern tip of PNG. One of the group, Fergusson Island, is famed for hosting Maria (Sound of Music) von Trapp in 1957 as she began to scope a major missionary project in PNG.

1 November: Samarai is a small island at the south-eastern tip of PNG. Two kilometres away is Kwato Island, where Rev Charles Abel established a London Missionary Society station in 1891. Kwato developed as an industrial mission with Papuan run plantations and a thriving boat-building facility.

2 November: Alotau.

4 November: Cairns.

BIG PNG VOYAGE DISCOUNTS

Orion Cruises are heavily discounting their expeditions to Papua New Guinea in October and November. Their website is offering massive 20% and 25% savings to lucky punters who failed to book early. Unfortunately I wasn’t one of them, a circumstance I view with more than a little chagrin.

The first cruise departs Cairns on 14 October and takes in Milne Bay, Deboyne Lagoon, the Trobriand Islands, Gizo and New Georgia in the Solomons and Rabaul.

The second cruise departs Rabaul on 24 October visiting the Sepik River, Madang, Long Island, the D’Entrecasteaux islands, Samarai, Kwato and Alotau before returning to Cairns.

THE ORION PNG LOG

A couple of months ago, MY Orion completed its first expedition cruise to Papua New Guinea and the voyage log [extracts of which I append] has just appeared on the Internet. My wife Ingrid and I will be cruising PNG on the Orion in October-November and, during that voyage, I look forward to sharing with you my experiences of revisiting a place I haven’t seen since leaving more than 30 years ago.

Tuesday 21 March: Nivani Island, Deboyne Lagoon, Lat 10°46’S, Long 152°24’E. This morning we anchored off the island of Nivani in the Deboyne Lagoon. Upon arrival a scout boat was sent ashore. Within a few minutes a report came back indicating conditions were good and a landing would be possible. Once ashore we realised we had discovered a bit of paradise: coconut trees, white sand, crystal clear water. On offer was swimming, snorkeling and kayaking. Many of us made our way to the WW2 Zero in just two metres of water. It was in perfect condition and home to a variety of fish and corals.

Friday 31 March: Watam Village, Sepik River, Lat 3°54’S, Long 144°32’E. Within minutes of arriving in the Sepik, we could see the scout boat shoot off in the direction of Watam. It reported favourable conditions for a landing and without hesitation we loaded into Zodiacs and went ashore. We were greeted by dancing, singing and laughter and, until the moment we left, treated like royalty by people who had never met us but acted like they were our long lost friends. We were shown around the village with stops at the school and the church. The rest of the morning was spent talking to locals and observing basket weaving and sago making. Every one of us left Watam marked with red dye on our cheeks and with an experience that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

Photo: Orion Expedition Cruises

MORE THAN JUST A DODDLE

The Mt.Wilhelm Traverse is for those with a sense of adventure. It is not just a quick weekend trip up to the summit, it takes four days for extremely strong walkers and six for those who want to take it a bit easier. It is an adventure, and you travel through absolutely spectacular country that is different to anywhere else on earth. It's rugged beauty is captivating.

So begins a wonderfully detailed description, complete with photographs, of the four-day trek which takes in Papua New Guinea's highest peak. It recaptured memories for me of that expedition at Easter 42 years ago when, with three companions, I climbed Mt Wilhelm, the story of which is contained in Gail Burke's excellent book, Meeting the Challenge.

PNG CRUISES RECOMMENCE

After a gap of some years, a cruise line has begun offering voyages around some of the main ports of Papua New Guinea - but at a price. Orion Expedition Cruises has six sailings a year, with fares ranging from $8,000 per traveller to twice that for the owner's suite.

There's a ten day cruise embarking at Cairns and sailing via Milne Bay, the Trobriands, Gizo and New Georgia in the Solomons to Rabaul. This abuts with an eleven day cruise from Rabaul via Kavieng, the Sepik, Madang, Long Island, Cape Nelson, Tufi, the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, Samarai and back to Cairns.

The Orion, a luxury vessel launched only two years ago, offers five star accommodation to her 100 passengers who are tended to by a crew of 75. In virtually every place visited, Orion drops anchor and lands travellers ashore in one of its fleet of 10 Zodiac inflatable rubber boats: the one brief taste of outstation life you're likely to suffer!