Western Region

Unknown N. Guinea

Patrol Now Examining Central- Western Region

Pt. Moresby, Dec. 6.

PENETRATION of the huge, well populated and generally unknown region that lies near the centre of New Guinea, south-eastwards of the point in the mountains where the boundaries of Australian New Guinea, Dutch New Guinea and Papua meet, is now being un dertaken by a small party in charge of Mr.

Allan Timperley (Assistant District Officer at Mount Hagen) and Patrol Officer Corrigan, They are making the first direct patrol from Mount Hagen. (New Guinea Central Highlands) to Lake Kutubu (near the western end of Papua).

Mr. Ivan Champion and the late Mr.

Jack Hides, two of the most distinguished members of the late Sir Hubert Murray’s Administration, were the first men to enter and report upon this interesting country.

Several different branches of a superior type of native live in the broad valleys and high, fertile plateaus that lie in this interior, protected by almost impassable chains of mountains and a rather terri fying “limestone barrier.”

Mr. Hides, in the ‘thirties, left the Administration service and took a small expedition into this country, via the Fly and the Strickland, in search of gold.

They got out, after suffering great priva tions; but Lyall, Hides’s companion, died at Daru, and Hides died not long after wards, in Sydney.

Although it has been examined fre nuently from the air, the whole region, embracing the headwaters of the Fly, Strickland, Sepik and Purari rivers, is still partly unmapped and unknown.