Off The Regular Tracks

-Ng's Lihir Island

Sailing round the New Ireland coast on the MV Mainiro, a sister ship of the Muniara which had sunk not long before in the Gulf of Papua we stayed three days at Lihir Island, 30 miles off the north east coast, where skipper David Herbert brother of Xavier Herbert, who wrote “Capricomia” introduced me to Mr. Jim Sciortino, manager of Londolovit Plantation, one of the most interesting men I came across in the New Guinea Islands.

The Londolovit homestead is beautifully situated on a height above the bay, and the gardens round the house and the plantation are in a highly flourishing condition. Our visit could not have been better timed, for the acquisition of Londolovit Estates Ltd. by Bali Plantations Ltd. was already in the wind; indeed it was announced to Bali shareholders only a few weeks later by Bali chairman J. Dunbar-Reid, from Rabaul.

Lihir is a striking and eminently productive island where there are still remnants of volcanic activity in the way of sulphur springs and fumaroles ; you can smell the sulphur fumes as you travel towards Londolovit along the coast. Seen from the other side, the island has a striking dragon's back effect.

The local native population of this hilly, bush-clad island, which is some 40 miles in circumference, is between 3,000 and 4,000. Every hut on the island has already been sprayed (the first of six six monthly sprayings) by the malaria control unit from Kavieng.

Londolovit Plantation itself occupies 721 acres, has about 32,000 mature coconut palms and 6JOOO new plantings; we also saw many of the 2,000 cocoa trees already in bearing, and the ground being

'prepared for a further 25,000 cocoa trees-

H. E. L. Priday.