Papua New Guinea Association of Australia Inc.
Where the Australia-PNG history, heritage & community comes together
In September-October 2002, I spent six weeks in Bougainville Province, now the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, doing field work for a study of village agriculture. The first indication of the transport troubles that lay...
The first set of wheels that I acquired in PNG, soon after I arrived in my first posting, was a bright red Honda 55 trail bike with an upswept exhaust. I think it cost...
During the 1980s I worked in Papua New Guinea for Talair, one of the largest third-level airlines in the world, with a mixed fleet of 55 aircraft flying a complex network of scheduled and...
In 1951 a decision was made to open a new patrol post in the Tari valley of the Southern Highlands of Papua. A suitable site for an airstrip had earlier been located by Sid...
In January 1964, as a licenced helicopter maintenance engineer, I was sent to PNG for the first time. One of the first tasks I remember took place in the Western Highlands when we flew...
When I got married in 1969, the idea was to have a year doing something interesting before settling down to kids and suburbia in Sydney. A shipmate from Jardines was Master of a coaster...
Toward the end of 1969, beginning a new tour of duty, I found myself at Wewak on the mainland of Papua New Guinea, again flying a two passenger Bell G3B1 turbo charged machine. This...
I’ve been waiting, bored and restless, since 8 am at the remote Simbai airstrip for a plane to take me back to Mt Hagen. It is now late afternoon. There’s not a lot to...
George Oakes’ article in Una Voce, December 2011, mentioned one of the Gibbes-Sepik pilots, Peter Manser. The previous year, 1954, whilst I was at Wewak and Angoram I got to know him and the...
In 1976 I was teaching at Mt Hagen Technical College. My three years at Kerema had ended in December 1969 and I was curious to see what the old town looked like. So, during...
In early 1957 I did a patrol of many of the villages in the Palei/Maimai region of Lumi Sub-District in the Sepik District. In early February I met up with ADO Frank Jones near...
1953: Auster on take-off crashed into Vanimo Harbour. The pilot was killed and passengers District Commissioner Ian Skinner and Assistant District Officer George Wearne were rescued from the submerged aircraft. 1955: Dragon on take-off...
(Published Una Voce, June 1997, page 6) Malcolm (Chips) MacKellar 1953-1955 CPO Daru and Lake Murray (Western District) 1955-1956 P.O. Mount Hagen (Western Highlands District) 1957 ASOPA Long Course 1958-1964 PO at Madang and...
