Where Suva Cools

Off

From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, July 26. f¥IHE hill station at Nadarivatu has X become fashionable again, after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a cen tury. The accommodation available is only fair, but a tropical resident gets very real pleasure in finding a tempera ture in the lower forties at an elevation of less than 3,000 feet.

The road communication is now quite good, electricity has arrived, supplies are easily obtainable, golf, tennis, and riding are supplemented by excellent “hiking” conditions, and rooms have to be booked far in advance.

The bush has not been improved 6y the activities of the timber company, in whose concession Nadarivatu lies, but from the point of view of scenery it has not suffered seriously.

A Plea For “Hill Stations”

EDITORIAL NOTE; This is good news for those who like Fiji, but hate the dis comfort of a lengthy sojourn in hot and steamy Suva. Territories’ Governments who wish to encourage the profitable tourist trade should give far more at tention to this matter. Within a very few miles of every one of the chief South Pacific waterside towns (Suva,

Apia, Papeete. Noumea. Rabaul, Port Moresby), without exception, there is a mountain range where a comfortable hill station could be placed, and where visitors, unaccustomed to tropical humi dity, could go and sleep in cold air for a night or two. The Dutch take great care of this aspect of European life in the tropics; the British and French, al though all the facilities are available, blandly ignore it. This writer, for example, has sweated and cursed in Rabaul, Apia, Suva, Noumea, and Port Moresby, on many occasions, and turned a longing eye towards the very nearby mountains; but there was no way of getting up there, and no accommodation there, in any event.

Rev. H. Matthews, Anglican rector at Port Moresby returned to Papua in July, after furlough in Australia. He has served in the Territory for over 15 years.