Where Australia's Money

Went Construction of "Brass-hats' Shangri-La," Behind Pt. Moresby

PORT MORESBY, the Cinderella of the Islands World, the Bone Yard of the Pacific, mention of which brings a contemptuous smile to the lips of superior folk who do not have to live there— Moresby has a surprisingly large number of small tourist attractions which help to fill in the time that so many travellers have to put in there.

In addition to the native sea villages, the Rona Falls, and, paradoxically, the fine military cemetery, there now exists a very curious showplace half-way up the slopes of Hombron Bluff. It is variously known as “Blarney’s Hideout,” “Brass hats’ Shangri-La,” or, more prosaically, “The Fauna and Flora Park.”

Nature here has constructed a peculiar terrace of some length and extent, mid way down one of Papua’s steepest hillsides.

There is even a small mountain lake im pounded in the hollow of the terrace, around which mountain scrub of a most luxurious description grows freely.

The Army has come along and trans formed this strip of jungle into a charm ing park, with winding paths, rockwork terraces, rustic seats, and lovers’ retreats, in a Blue Mountains setting. An Apostle of the Obvious has been at work with botanical labels; and, from them, tourists are introduced by name to the Pawpaw, the Banana, the Breadfruit, and other tropical commonplaces.

On the day of our visit, the Fauna con sisted of a native caretaker and police man. apparentlv placed there to watch that tourists didn’t pinch the flowers: but the finest specimens are said to have returned to Australia with the Army.

The whole set-up is amazing. Setting aside its undoubted beauty, one wonders what part this Garden of the Gods played in winning the New Guinea cam paign, how many thousands of pounds and units of native labour were expended in its construction—and what will hap pen to it after the next rainy season when the road of access, which even now might be described as a bad specimen of goat track, gets finally and utterly

washed down into the Laloki Gorge.

Had the money and the work been put into a small experimental tropical gar den, on a site not in danger of sliding down to perdition at any moment, and some assortment of useful tropical plants that every child of six does not know by name, collected the expenditure would have been justified on educational and economic grounds.

As it is. The Fauna and Flora Park of Papua is just another monumen t to Army Brass-hat love of luxury and waste of public money.—G.H.V.