During the Japanese occupation of Rabaul in WWII, 300 to 500 kilometres of tunnels were dug into the volcanic soil around the Gazelle Peninsula and the caldera wall surrounding Rabaul Harbour. This was primarily...
A few years after Independence, I was teaching at the Civil Aviation Agency Training College (CATC) at Taldora (Six Mile) in Port Moresby. A group of young men and women were about to graduate...
Hello there, Here is the final part of a personal reminiscence and quick look by one Australian expat living in New Guinea, pre Independence. I had a total of sixteen years flying in PNG....
When visiting Bangkok I’ve wondered what it would be like to live there. The sensations of colour, smell, movement and noise are so overpowering, as is the humidity and heat. It’s contrasted by the...
I was born at Vunairima near Rabaul in 1934. My parents were Methodist missionaries at the time in the Duke of York Islands. When I was about 15 months old, my parents moved to...
This is transcribed from the original typewritten manuscript. The original appears in a number of illustrations in the Photo Gallery “One of the Early Birds: Derek (Jos) Elwyn Crisp”, starting with this page. It...
When in Rabaul in August 2003 and staying at the Hamamas Hotel, in what remained of Mango Avenue after the 1994 volcanic eruption, I noticed some unusual coins in usage by those local citizens...
While stationed at Wau as the Patrol Officer in late 1972, over Christmas my fiancée came to visit. She worked for a short while as a casual at the New Guinea Gold Mining (NGG)...
When the wheels of the Etihad Airways Airbus A330 Flight 055 lifted off the ground in Abu Dhabi bound for Brussels on 30 March 2013, another milestone in Papua New Guinea aviation history was...
Papua New Guinea was a very different place before Independence. A fascinating place filled with unbelievable characters and real achievers. It had a unique history from the days when the British ran Papua and...
In my article Cruise to Rabaul, I ended saying how I had found, among the people I met, “…an eagerness for the upcoming elections and the hope that a new government could set PNG...
Published 13 August 2014. Eastern Highlands Province Papua New Guinea. Nicholas Yambu was Parish Priest at Tari, Hela Province Tribal fights in Hela are a common thing. The recent fights have been different though,...
Volcanic eruptions have long fascinated people. Almost everybody knows something about the 1883 eruption of Krakatau (Indonesia), commonly regarded as the biggest during the last few hundred years. Such knowledge stems from detailed field...
It was February 1954, and I was at Goroka airport with two other Cadet Patrol Officers, Max Allwood and Neil McNamara. We were about to board a Norseman for a flight to Mt Hagen...
The Jimi Primary T School at Tabibuga in 1963. About half the students were boarders from up and down the valley and from 8 different language groups. Great to have those stories of experiences...
