Wild Way To, Wau

Other "Roads" Recalled by Alice Allen Innes

READING that most interesting article, “Road to Wau,” in the August “PIM,” nils one with admiration for the grand work that must have gone into New Guinea’s new highway, but I feel that it would not be amiss to recall a few glimpses of the early efforts to make that road.

Long before the butcher and baker dropped good fresh food from the air, and long before the faraway and uninterested world cared how or what hardships the pioneers suffered, the road was well under way, and would have been an accomplished fact but for the vague ditherings of Canberra.

The sweat, work, suffering and heartbreaks that went into the “roads to Wau” hold ample material for a dozen books of adventure, even in my time (1927 to 1937). Every surveyor, and his assistants, should be worthy of a place in the annals of British explorers. 1 REMEMBER Mr. Sheldon, the Government surveyor, who was one of the finest bushmen-explorers New Guinea has ever known. He went through Salamaua to make the road to Wau, about 1926, during one of those optimistic periods when it was thought the longawaited highway might eventually materialise, in spite of the apathy or what-have-you in high places down “South.”

With a small band of newly-“trained” native road-makers, securer after a most hazardous recruiting trip, Mr. Sheldon managed to construct a fairly good track for 45 miles. The terribly steep mountain slopes and torrential rains caused continuous washaways that must have been heart-breaking to a man who was so anxious to see the road completed.

However, he might as well have spared himself the worry, for he was withdrawn such 1 hprn^°pffn?f d cn!j e ? ew road ’ borr f °? ansed u°l d to ™* u eotten thino-* 11010 mto the limbo of for " gotten tnmgs.

A YEAR later, he was sent to Salamaua to map out another road to Wau This time the road was a very urgent need, as it was feared the planes could not cope with the rapidly increasing traffic to Wau. Passengers went by plane, but the track was used a great deal to transport stores.

So, for the second time, Mr. Sheldon was ferried across the Francisco River,

this time with 40 stalwart natives loaded to the regulation limit and ready for a battle with the jungle, range, and rivers, Up along the left bank of the river they passed, thence to the foothills, and slepi the first night at Komiatum—a 900-feet climb. Here they found Joe Sloane and Bill Money, two of the original “Big Six.”

The brothers Mathewson were also there, Sloane and company were all optimistic about the trip, and welcomed the sur veyor. They travelled on together, as the track was still none too safe from troublesome natives.

Crossing the Big Divide at 8 a.m. next day, they were 2,400 feet up, and bitterly cold from the heavy rains. They camped at the House Sac-Sac (a recently and hastily constructed palm-leaf hut), where fleas had so much sway that even witty Joe and whimsical Bill Money fell to cuss ing. The result was a daylight start, and they reached the Bitoi River by 9 a.m.

All were in a hurry. The miners wanted to get back to the fields and their claims, and the surveyor wanted to commence the road, this time from the Wau end of the track.

The party made camp at Momboi River, up another 2,000 feet, after travelling in torrential rains. As soon as the rain eased off they descended the mountain slope a thousand feet, and crossed the Bitoi over a very frail cane bridge—swaying dan gerously and looking like some spider’s effort. Next came a steep climb of 3,000 feet, with a scorching sun on their backs, Dog-tired, they arrived at Wapali village, to find dysentery raging, There, also, they passed a number of dying natives being taken to Salamaua — mostly dysentery and pneumonia cases from the field. A medical officer had recently arrived in Salamaua, where a native hut served, very inadequately, as a hospital.

From Waipali the track lay along a gentle slope until it reached Wibaining village, but at one spot the travellers had to climb up the steep mountain sides with the aid Qf a native ladder—notched P ol es, very slippery, that gave little hold to other than natlve feet * At 3 > 700 feet th ey met Ernie Banks, later the Proprietor of a Rabaul hotel; and enjoyed the hospitality of his camp, TTIHE next day, pushing on down the A Bitoi gorge again, they had to climb up the heights to Gadagadu, 4,000 feet above. Here they stayed at Bill

Money’s cache. Joe Sleane, oldest mem ber of the party, as renowned a walker as the late Sir Hubert Murray, pushed on

ahead and reached the field two days before Sheldon’s party.

Leavmg Gadagadu, passing through a thick jungle of mossy roots, they climbed to 6,000 feet and made camp. A “Housecopper” was hastily constructed from a few sheets of galvanised iron recently abandoned by carriers, possibly in flight or sickness.

By noon next day they had descended again to camp at the but the following day brought a long descent, the track running from the top of the peculiar marble ridges, down to Rabau village (then called incorrectly Rabaul).

At this village many natives came to ask the white man to. “make court” and compensate them for the robberies committed by the passing carriers. The natives seemed friendly, apart from their

resentment of thieving. Indeed, they were the very people who, rfnany years before, had escorted Bill Parkes, one of the original discoverers of the field, when he had made his first trek through that country. , IT , . , , , A J When Sheldon s party next made their camp it was on the Bulolo, and on the ne . xt day they climbed to Kai-ende, often mis-called Edie Creek, lITHEN Mr. Sheldon returned to Wau fT he reported that he considered it possible to construct a 45-miles road direct from the port of Salamaua to Wau; but that the road from Wau to Kai-ende was a task that could not be attempted for some time to come. However, the Wau-to-Kai-ende road was eventually

completed, while the direct Wau-Sala maua road was never built.

When the party arrived at the warden’s office at Wau, Sheldon was told that there was no food for the line of 160 boys then employed as carriers to and from the coast and as the local miners were practically on starvation rations, owing to transport difficulties, he was asked to escort the starving .carriers back to the port at Salamaua, where stores could be obtained., It was suggested that they might be able to borrow rations on the way down, from the mining camps of Mrs. Booth or Bill Parkes.

His own carriers being on the point of starvation, Sheldon found it impossible to proceed with his intended inspection of the track, another possible course for the mooted road. This trip was made afterwards by two women—Mrs. Booth and Mrs. Tommie Thompson.

At a lower camp the party found a well-known prospector from Papua, George Arnold, who was able to let them have a little native food, and who also directed them on to the Missim track, that he and his partner, George Robin son, had discovered. On this track they travelled for days through granite ranges and razor-backs covered with kunai grass, but eventually came out to the headwaters of the Frisco River, the lower reaches of which miners crossed at Salamaua on the first stage of the jour ney.

For three days there was no food, either for master or natives. Two died of dysentery, and two who were lagging behind simply disappeared. Mr. Sheldon had a very strenuous and unenviable time all the way down, coping faith the weak ness and hunger of the pathetic band of natives, who were resentful and sullen.

The great “Gubment” had promised them rich rewards to undertake the dangerous trip into unknown territory, yet they had to hunger while seeing food all around them—for if they helped them selves to the ample crops or pigs of the country through which they passed they wefe either speared by the wild natives or punished by their own Government. It had been part of the same Government’s contract to provide ample native food for the whole journey, yet they were dying of starvation, or of the dreaded dysentery brought! on by the absence of those foods on which their health depended.

WHITE men would have realised that evidently the Government’s custom of requiring regulation lists of sup plies to be first checked, had held up the food, and, with a muttered “That so and-so red tape as usual!” would have made the best of a very bad bargain. But all the natives knew was that they had been let down badly, and in revenge they threw away all the camp equipment they carried. A short-sighted revenge, for then they, as well as the master, had to lie in the heavy rains which fell each night, unprotected by tent or blanket. The medicine chest also was lost, so there was nothing with which to combat the fever that followed upon cold and hunger.

None of the party could sleep, but they rested miserably until the first gleam of dawn, when hunger spurred their weary, dragging feet down the track. Some of the natives died by the way, and the worried surveyor realised that each hour spent on the track meant greater sick ness, and less strength to fight, should local natives attack them. He had pro mised to get those starving natives down to Salamaua at all costs, though by so promising he had been compelled once more to abandon his cherished plan of surveying the new route back.

After crossing the dangerous head waters of the ’Frisco, they came quickly down the ranges to Salamaua, arriving

there 12 days after Sheldon had set out on his survey. He had taken eight days to go up, and only 3i to get back, although handicapped with his band of sick and dying natives.

LATER, Sheldon, with two chainmen and only nine natives, was sent to make another attempt at surveying, although the Government would not allow Europeans to travel in that particular zone with less than 10 natives each.

According to that reckoning, his quota of natives should have been at least 30.

Maybe, after his epic trip, Mr. Sheldon was regarded as no mere European, but as a special breed of superman to whom the ordinary rules and provisions made for the protection of ordinary mortals did not apply.

Thus came still another Wau road attempt, though by this time I am afraid the white population of the goldfields area had come to regard the road as a legend. This time, the Buang route was selected as a possible* winner; but the survey seemed doomed from the Very start, one of the party, Erskine, dying at Charley Kay’s lease on the Buang track.

The Buang trip was again cancelled by orders from the Administration, and later a third attempt was made to sur vey the road from Salamaua to Wau.

This time was to see another little band of three white men and nine natives tackle the heaviest survey work ever attempted in the territory. The track almost ran blood in those years, from native murders. One miner at Wau thought it would be a good idea if the native carriers were allowed only two days’ supply of rations when returning to the coast. The trip down actually took three to four days, but he thought hun ger would spur the natives on their way, and prevent their loitering in villages and purchasing favours from village maidens in return for kai-kai. Thus the carriers would return more rapidly to the fields, where the stores they were bring ing back were anxiously awaited.

This allegedly good idea was one of the reasons for the constant slaughter, since, if short of provisions on the journey, the carriers simply stole from the natives in the surrounding country, who, in their turn, wreaked vengeance on any carriers they could ambush.

SO to-day the grey ghosts creep along the track—ghosts of the confused

natives who knew only their own laws, and ghosts of the miners who have gone. Soldiers have now stumbled up and down the track; lorries, I hear, swing around the bends, and the lone sharp spurs are no longer far outposts and native look-outs, but have become mile stones and names on maps. Even the far world hears of them as the battle grounds of our heroic men.

It will not be hard to vision a future when prosperous small mountain towns may dot the highway and even we older Morobe-ites may have ceased to remem ber how very much we owe to the sacri fice and splendid pioneering that went into the once “Wild Way to Wau.”