TIME TRAVEL

It was 1964 and it was my first year of teaching. I was teaching at Korobosea School in Pt Moresby, Papua /New Guinea. It was quite exciting having my own class and classroom. I was nervous at the beginning but with support from my colleagues I started to get more confident. I was keen to do the right thing by the children and their parents and I worked hard at it. However, at the end of term it was time to have fun and explore this new country. Some friends and I booked up for a day trip by charter aircraft to the Trobriand Islands. They are a group of tropical islands off the north east coast of PNG in Milne Bay.  See map.

View Larger Map

Early in the morning we arrived at Jackson's Airport and climbed aboard a trusty DC3 aircraft. These airplanes were used a lot in those days in PNG. They were tough old workhorses. Pilots were also very good, they had to be to cope with the towering mountains, the sudden tropical thunderstorms and the hectic turbulence. I was pleased to see that we had proper aircraft seats this time not like the last time I went on a chartered plane ride, where the seats were webbed garden variety chairs along the walls of the fuselage.
The Trobriand Islands belong to PNG but in the sixties the people were still living like they had for thousands of years in grass huts in villages and feeding themselves from native crops and the sea. The Australian Government were establishing schools, medical clinics, law and order, cooperative plantations and generally helping the people to learn to live in the 20th century. (Whether this was a good idea or not is still debated) Church missionaries were also bringing western style religions. They also built schools and hospitals.
It was a fairly smooth flight over the mountains as most morning flights were. We landed and a truck picked us up and took us to visit some villages and beaches. It was extremely hot and humid as it is every day of the year when you are so near to the equator. We had our swim gear with us.

When we arrived in the village many of the locals came to meet us. They came to look at us and we came to look at them. I thought the little ones were cute.

These islanders were known for their beautiful grass skirts and they were a sought after souvenir. The villagers were happy to sell them and other artefacts too. Carvings were also popular. I still have two grass skirts in a cupboard somewhere.

These buildings were storage houses for their produce such as yams, taro and coconuts.

The colour was so bad in this 50 year old slide that I had to take it out altogether. These are the houses where the people lived.

After the buying of artefacts we climbed back on our truck and headed for a swim at the beach. These shy teenage girls came to wave goodbye.

 This old photo doesn't do this scene justice. It was a lovely tropical island beach. After we had a swim we were all thirsty so one of our tour guides spoke to the local boys in Pidgin English and the next thing we saw.........

  some boys climbing the tallest coconut trees.  They knocked the coconuts to the ground and another fellow cut the husk off the top with a huge machete .

Then holes were punctured into the nut so that we could drink the cool coconut milk. It is great when you are hot and thirsty.

After a picnic lunch we were back in the truck to visit another village.

A Trobriand Is village 1964

Village houses 

Food storage buildings

In this village we were taken on a canoe ride along the river. It was wobbly and we had to be careful not to tip it over. Once we had all settled it was quite steady. One fellow sat in the front and one paddled at the back.

The children waved us goodbye and chased us into the water.

We passed some more villages nestled under the palm trees on the bank of the river. These children were playing on a canoe similar to the one we were on. It was if we had travelled back in time to see people living in such a simple, primitive way. All too soon it was time to head back to the airport for the flight back home to Pt Moresby. We were all hot and tired and it was nice to be up in the cooler air until we started to bounce around. In the late afternoon it is a bad time to fly. The afternoon storm clouds gather together over the mountains and the turbulence is bad. As the pilot manoeuvred his way along the valleys between the tall, menacing mountains we hung on tight like on a bucking bronco. Luckily we beat the storms home but I was glad to have my feet on the ground again.

THE BIG SMOKE

A slang term for "the city" is "the big smoke". We went into the big smoke to meet friends for lunch. We agreed to meet at the Gallery of Modern Art's cafe overlooking the river. Our friends had a meeting with their financial adviser first so we went to the new Apple Shop to sort a problem with our iPad, then we had to visit the Medicare Office to claim for TOH's cataract op. Unfortunately, by the time we met our friends and had lunch we didn't have enough time to spend in GoMA. It is our favourite gallery. However, I took some shots of the cultural centre of Brisbane using my repaired lens.  

 After our business was finished we walked over the Victoria Bridge to the cultural centre

 Then we walked along the bank of the river.

We passed the museum,

 the Digital Cultural Centre,

evidence that the Art Gallery was close by,

 

   

the Art Gallery's outdoor sculptures,

and the State Library of Queensland.

 We walked through the Library breezeway to the Gallery of Modern Art's outside cafe.

 There to greet us was an elephant standing on its head.

 After a delicious fish lunch we walked back the Queensland Performing Arts Centre where we caught the bus home.

The Cultural Centre bus station.

NEED WHEELS

I had been living in Port Moresby for a few months back in 1964 when I realised I desperately needed my own transport. The local buses were not very  reliable, clean or safe so I used to get lifts to work from colleagues. However, if I was to have a social life, I needed my own wheels. I didn't have enough money to buy a car as I had only been working a few months. However, I saw an ad for Honda motor scooters and fell in love with them staraight away. After, writing to my parents and discussing it with them via snail mail, I bought one and had a ton of fun with it. At last I was independent.

With my togs on and a towel round my neck, I would drive down Touaguba Hill to Ela Beach for a swim. Later I bought saddle bags to take my stuff to school and for carrying the shopping home. There were a few drawbacks. When it rained I wore rain gear but tropical rain is heavy and it managed to get inside the rain wear. It was also hot and sticky wearing plastic. Another nasty was driving under Poinciana Trees when grubs would dangle on silky strings down to my level. It was like driving through a curtain of webs with wrigglies attached. But the worst of all was driving behind an "olie" truck, that was a truck carrying a load of native passengers. "All or altogether" in Pidgin English is "olgeta" shortened to "ole" or "olie" or "oley". Anyway often passengers in the open "ole" trucks would spit big globs of red betel juice over the side of the truck which would come sailing through the air at me. I learnt to leave plenty of room between me and an an "olie" truck. Betel nuts were chewed together with lime and the juice was a stimulant drug but the remains were spat out anywhere. The streets were decorated with red splashes and so was I if I got too close to an "olie" truck.

Photo from Vanessa Simmons' collection

Swimming in the tropical sea at Ela Beach was lovely. Occasionally we would see pretty striped sea snakes which spooked me as they are poisonous.

I wanted to make new friends in my new country, so being sports mad, I joined a variety of sporting clubs and started making lots of friends. Archery was my first choice.

 This photo was in the newspaper with an article about the club.

I also joined the 303 rifle club. I entered competitions for women and did quite well for our club. I didn't stay long as it was too hot lying in the sun and often wet with millions of mosquitoes buzzing in my ears and eyes. It made it a bit hard to concentrate and hold the rifle steady. We were advised to take malaria tablets before we arrived in the Territory of Papua/New Guinea and to keep on taking them every day for as long as we lived there. I did take them religiously and I was lucky never to suffer from malaria.

My friend Del throwing a male opponent. Photo from Charles Betteridge

I also joined the Judo Club of Pt Moresby and this is where I met some really nice people. We still have get togethers once a year. I felt this was a really handy sport in that it was learning self defence too. Women had to learn to throw heavier men to the ground.

Idlers Bay

With my new friends, I travelled to different beaches along the coast. The roads were rough dirt tracks.

 Having fun in the sun. One soon had a dark suntan in the days before we knew about sun bathing and skin cancer.

During the easter holidays one of my friends, Helene, from ASOPA college came to Pt Moresby for a break from her small village where she had been posted. We went for a picnic at Brown River.

With wheels, friends and a job that I enjoyed I was having a great adventure. 

BROOKLYN IN OZ

Our short trip to the central coast of Queensland came to an end. We motored home a different way and called into the small country town of Howard. We had heard of an historic house there, so we called in. It is a privately owned house but it is heritage listed. The owner gives tours and tells of its history. She included some spooky stories too. She and her husband have lovingly restored the house after finding it in a run down state. Empty except for local teenagers using it as a hangout. However, their children have left home and the owners want to move on and the house is up for sale. $799,000.00

An historical 64sq Queensland home built in 1890. Brooklyn House, with its 14 feet high ceilings, marble mantelpieces, cedar and beech panelling comprising six bedrooms, two bathrooms, lounge and dining room, study, sun room, kitchen with eating nook, upstairs  apartment, open 9 feet wide verandas on three sides, a grand double stairway entrance and four marble fireplaces. Includes a cottage craft shop and Devonshire teas.

 The house was built for Dame Annabelle Rankin, a famous politician:
Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin DBE (28 July 1908 – 30 August 1986) was the second woman member of the Australian Senate, the first woman from Queensland to sit in the Parliament of Australia, the first Australian woman to have a federal portfolio and the first Australian woman to be appointed head of a foreign mission.

The owners bedroom

Guest room

The kitchen had both old and modern appliances.

Then it was home to our little suburban houses in Brisbane.

A CRUISE IN THE SUNSHINE

It was our last day on the central coast of Queensland. Since we were here celebrating George's birthday, he was asked to choose what activity to do on the last day. He chose to go on a river cruise on the Burnett River which flows through the town of Bundaberg.

 We arrived at the mini dock at 9:00am where the "Bundy Belle" was waiting for us and a few others too. It was already a hot sunny day.

 The captain of the boat was also a local school music teacher but he gave us a running commentary on places and their history as we lazily motored along the river. We couldn't go any further up stream than this because the huge floods last year filled the river with silt and sand. The water came up to the top of the bridges and did a lot of damage in the city.

 So we headed towards the mouth of the river. George, in the checked shirt, chose to sit in the hot sun on the top deck.

 Paul, Helen and the rest of us sat inside and collected a cool breeze through the windows. We admire Paul so much as he is having treatment for cancer and he is in quite a lot of pain but he keeps fighting it and joining in with us whenever he can. We hope this new treatment will give him some relief and more time with us all.

We passed the rowing club and.....

 the sailing club. Behind the yachts is a huge sugar storage shed and the wharf where ships come to fill their holds with bulk sugar. Bundaberg is famous for its sugar, rum and ginger beer.

 We passed miles of marinas crammed full of million dollar yachts shimmering in the sun.

After three hours we had returned back to the little wharf and a huge seafood restaurant. We didn't take long to decide this is where we'll have lunch and.....

it was delicious!