travel talk

some ideas for those who want to travel and for those who just dream about it

With certain famous exceptions, the world’s tourist spots that have been a natural, just happened to be on a route to somewhere else. That is the easiest way to develop a tourist industry and airline companies, with the concessions that round-the-world tickets bring, and the main shipping services, which plug along the recognised routes, perpetuate the trend.

The Pacific Picture

r 1 be even just slightly off the recognised tourist track, makes the development of a tourist in dustry that much harder —and most of the Pacific Islands, although they can provide some of the world’s most pleasant scenery and interest ing native life, fall by the way side of mass tourism on that account.

Until recently, Fiji was the only South Pacific island that was on the main sea route and main air route between Australasia and North America, and in the last 10 years it has cashed in handsomely on a growing tourist industry.

It now has an international air port at Nadi that puts some in far larger countries in the shade; a growing string of excellent hotels right around the main island— many of them right up to recognised international standard; and adequate local road and air trans port.

Apart from the people who fly to Fiji or arrive by ship to spend several weeks in the Colony, the big airline operations, Qantas, Pan American and Canadian Pacific Airlines, on their services between Australia and New Zealand and North America, every day of the week are dropping people off at Nadi to break their journey for a few days in Fiji before they resume their main journeys north or south, or around the world.

Tahiti is Good That’s been the Fiji tourist story for some time—and now it is obvious that another South Pacific island is going to get very much into the same sort of picture.

Tahiti, of course, has always been a magnet for the more romantic sort of South Seas magic-seeker, but now that it has got onto an air route that can easily be in corporated in a round-the world air ticket, it is going to get a lot more regular tourists as well.

Because of the new airport at Faa’a, near Papeete (it is now tak ing conventional aircraft but will be ready for the big jets by mid year) , Tahiti becomes an interesting deviation to the usual main trunk route.

The French Airline, Transports Aeriennes Intercontinentaux, has a service now that goes all the way from Paris to the Pacific coast of the US via Sydney, Noumea, Fiji and Papeete, using DCS jets on the Paris-Noumea section, and DC7c aircraft on the remainder.

But there are other variations on the theme: Qantas or one of the other big operators from Europe and America to Honolulu; South Pacific Air Lines from Honolulu to Papeete: TEAL to Nadi, Fiji; then back to Qantas or other inter national operator for Australia and the Middle East route back to Europe.

Try New Guinea or New Zealand

Both airline operators on the Sydney-New Guinea service, Ansett- ANA and Trans Australia Airlines, are interested in developing tourism in Papua-New Guinea.

Hitherto the Territory has had no organised tourist industry—except for round-trippers on the ships trading between Australian and Territory ports, and occasional cruises by the big overseas shipping companies to Port Moresby and Rabaul.

TAA plans four conducted air tours to P-NG in 1961, the first leaving Melbourne (or Sydney) on May 8; and others following on June 12, July 22, and August 26.

Each tour party will be escorted throughout by a hostess and the duration of tours will be 14 days.

The number in the party will be limited —with not more than 20 in any of them, but with the number probably around 12.

Hotel accommodation in P-NG is too limited at present to be able to cope with a larger party.

The itinerary for the tour leaving Sydney (or Melbourne) on May 8

has now been released. It is e pected that the other three toi will follow the same general rou but the May tour has the advanta of taking in the Goroka Show whi this year is scheduled for the wee end of May, 20-21.

The Show is the amateur phol grapher’s delight, as thousands Highland natives throng the Sh Grounds dressed in magnifice feather head-dresses (but lit else).

The tour leaves Melbourne/Sydr on May 8, arrives Port Moresby t following morning and divides t 12 days in the Territory betwe that town and Wau, Bulolo, L Madang, Goroka and Mt. Hagi Except in Lae, where the party v be accommodated in TAA trail quarters, local hotels will provi accommodation.

Using the above centres as a ba road and air tours—and some cru ing to islands off the Lae a Madang coasts—will occupy mi days. Plenty of opportunity will given for shopping, visiting planl tions, inspecting the industries the Territory and points of historii interest such as the War Cemeter in Lae and Port Moresby. Nat: villages, schools, etc., also figi largely on the programme.

Inclusive cost of the 14 days to Melbourne - b a c k-t o-Melbourne £A2BS, first class; £A27O/13 tourist. Sydney-back-to-Sydn £A26I/14/- first class; £A252/! tourist class.

Low cost package-deal air toi of New Zealand are now possil through a new air company that:

Good value is Fiji's Korolevu Beach Ho[?] which in December opened a new wing those who prefer hotel rooms to native-st bures. Popular hosts at Korolevu are [?] and Mrs. Bill Clark (above).

Photo: Stins[?]

y went into operation in the nion. ese tours are primarily de d for Australians but should be terest to residents of the SW ic Territories as a variation of usual three-months-leave-in alia. 3 package deal is for return ravel across the Tasman and ; a 2,000 mile circuit of both is of NZ. The inclusive cost— -1 only—is approximately £AIOO. :e in Auckland, the air tour down the west coast of the is via New Plymouth, Mount •nt, Nelson, Mt. Cook, Milford d, across Central Otago and up ast coast via Christchurch and ;r, (There are other variations is route, too). ? whole thing could be done week-end—or extended over a e of months. Cost of stop is a liability of the passenger, e trans-Tasman section of the ey is by Tasman Empire Air- Ltd. The New Zealand section idertaken by a new air com which is 49 per cent, owned nsett Transport Industries of mrne, Victoria. 3 new company’s name is i Pacific Airlines of New Zea- Ltd., and as it is sometimes re i to in the New Zealand Press South Pacific Airlines” and :imes as “Airlines of New Zea there is a certain amount of sion about it that is unfor e. (South Pacific Airlines,

which has no connection with the NZ company, operates Super Con stellation services between Honolulu and Papeete).

The New Zealand company is using specially converted DC3 air craft for their scenic route. The air craft have five-feet long windscreen like windows that allow customers to get the full effect of New Zea land’s spectacular fiordland, rugged mountains and beautiful lakes.

Touring Abroad

For the more blase traveller

who likes to go by ship to Europe, but is fed up with the

old Suez route, P&O and Orient

Lines have a new variation on

the theme for mid-1961.

THEY call this one the Safari Voyage, and it is being carried out on the now fully air-condi tioned 30,000 tons Iberia.

The route is Sydney, Melbourne, Fremantle, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Mombasa, Middle East Ports and Suez Canal, Athens, Naples, Lisbon and London.

Departure from Sydney is June 30; arrival in London, August 6.

For those whose geography is a little rusty: Mauritius is the small British island in the Indian Ocean, about 1,000 miles due east of the African coast (Lat. 20 deg. S), which is very like Fiji on a small scale.

Zanzibar, a small island off the coast of Tanganyika, is still a self contained British Protectorate and was once an ancient Arab trading post.

And Mombasa is, of course, the most important port of Kenya.

A feature of this voyage—and hence its name—is the three days the ship stays in Mombasa to allow passengers to make excursions to Kenya’s game reserves.

Normal first class and tourist class fares to Europe operate.

Cheapest single passage (tourist, of course) is £AI6S: and the most ex pensive de luxe first class is £AI,OBI.

Some Sun-drenched Places

For those who have tried just about everything in the travel line; or appear likely to land in Europe at the coldest time of the year, there are various unusual, sun drenched places that were once off the beaten track but have now be come virtually next-door through jet travel. , One of these places is Dakar, which is suggested by Pan American Airways for winter travellers in search of the sun.

Pan-Am have services from New York to Dakar via Lisbon; at pre sent it usually means an over-night stop in Lisbon but when jets go onto the Lisbon-Dakar leg of the route, later this year, the whole journey will be done in a matter of 12 hours.

Dakar is on the Cape Verde Peninsula, which juts out into the Atlantic as the western-most part of the big bulge of West Africa.

From Dakar to Natal, at the tip of the corresponding bulge in Brazil, is the shortest hop across the Atlantic, and Dakar came into war time prominence because of this.

Dakar was once French Colonial, but is now the capital of the new Republic of Senegal and the seat of the Federation of Mali. It has also become a fashionable tourist resort, and its white beaches and blue sea attract hundreds of visitors during the dry season, November to May.

Back from the beach is the palatial Grand Hotel de N’Gor which caters for the tourist trade in the best French Riviera tradition.

Cost of a double-room is from £A4/10/- per day. Close by is YofT International Airport.

Local colour is provided by the Moslem fishermen, the Senegalese silver and ivory merchants and the gaudily dressed Dakar women. But over all is still the influence of Colonial French.

Go to Timbuktu Dakar is also the jumping off place for trips to Timbuktu, the fabled lost city of the desert. An airfield is now being built near Timbuktu, but at the moment the journey must still be made by steamer up the Niger River. This once famous Moslem stronghold, the southern terminus for caravan routes across the Sahara, is now little more than a cluster of baked mud huts and a few mosques.