New Guinea

Gulliver's

Travels In

By a Staff Writer

Sample testing is a very sen sible procedure for anyone who

is selling anything, and the High

land Board of the Papua-New Guinea Tourist Travel Associa tion had something of the sort in mind when it recently spon sored the visit to the Territory of two Sydney residents, Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Gulliver.

THE question that will be asked, however, by most people who read the report which the Gullivers subsequently made to the board will not be whether the Gullivers were typical tourists but whether the treatment they got in New Guinea was the sort of thing that ordinary, unsponsored tourists can expect to get.

The whole thing started when Mr.

Gulliver, an Englishman, and an electrical engineer, wrote to the P-NG Tourist Assn, asking for in formation. They paid their own air fares to Lae, where they were met by an airline manager who im mediately gave them a free ticket to Goroka. The same company later gave them a free ticket from Madang to Lae and generally was “most co operative” all over the territory.

Hotels gave them a 50 per cent, dis count, one car hire firm 33 per cent, discount; and they were introduced to or were assisted by people whom the ordinary tourist would never see.

Off The Beaten Track

But the Gullivers did things the usual run of tourist doesn’t do either —they went for long walks, ex plored caves and drove on secondary roads calculated to daunt most non- Territory types.

Their comments on New Guinea for the tourist are fresh and probably of value to the local Tourist Board.

We understand that they also com piled a separate list of comments on hotels. (But this we haven’t seen).

And they had their inevitable Ter ritory “experiences” despite a con siderable amount of duchessing— blank looks at some places where they should have been expected but where communications had broken

down; and the affair of the car hired in Mt Hagen (at £7/10/- per day plus petrol). Of this incident, Mr. Gulliver reports: “We picked up the hire-car at the hotel at 10 a.m. and started on the road to Wabag [N-W of Mt. Hagen].

About two miles out I realised I had not checked the tools, so we stopped immediately and found, sure enough, that there was no wheel brace and almost no tools.

“Since it is very foolish to venture out on this sort of road without proper provision for tools, we eventually got properly equipped after having pumped up one of the rear tyres, which was nearly flat.

“My advice to anyone who hires a car in New Guinea is to give it a thorough checking over before leav ing on any sort of trip. This was borne out later when the radiator boiled dry. There obviously was very little water in it to start with.

“The scenery on the Wabag road was extremeiy interesting, and we climbed ever upward towards the rain

forest around 8,500 ft. Every square inch of the ground seemed to be covered in rich luxuriant growth, and further on, dank creepers of moss hung from every tree. However, this scenery is fascinating as long as you are in a car that is moving and you have a full stomach and plenty of water. I could imagine :hat it very quickly becomes alien f you have none of these.

Automatics "Unsuitable"

“The car we had hired had auto natic transmission, extremely un mitable for these roads and with ilmost zero road holding, and hand ing abilities. We got as far as the top >f the long drive down to Wapenda nunda but the car had performed o badly that I just didn’t trust taking t down.”

Like every other tourist who goes o the Highlands they were most mpressed by seeing primitive natives —this,, after all, is why people go here and what makes New Guinea inique.

“It was,” he reports “a privilege o see this sort of gathering [a small ing-sing] of natives in full dress, ompletely unphony and unspoilt. I

only hope that when more tourists come to the Highlands the affair will not become commercialised. I hate to think of painted warriors holding out their hands for 1/- a photo and with Coca-cola and hot-dog stands for the tourist who can’t stand the pace.”

Of New Guinea tourism in general he has this to say; “The first market for tourists is obviously Australia because of its nearness and the number of relatively affluent people there. The other markets would be the United States and New Zealand—but because of distance only the wealthier Ameri cans and New Zealanders could afford it. . . . First class accommoda tion would have to be geared to the American way of life with air-con ditioning, bell service and iced-water everywhere.

“The American likes to rough it between nine and five, but at night he wants the Hilton, be it in the centre of a jungle or in a desert. This

type of accommodation goes down well with well-off Australians, too.

“But in addition to this affluent market there is another section of the community in nearby Australia that could be profitably tapped. This is the section to which we belong— people in the twenties and early thirties with sufficient money for the trip to the Territory but not sufficient to cover the high cost of hotel accommodation.

Rest-Houses Needed

“The establishment of rest-houses or camping sites in villages would cater for this type of market adequately. Younger people are not too worried about comfort although they appreciate hygienic toilets and reasonable washing facilities . . .

“For transport, circular tours by mini-bus could be profitably employed here. Tours of two, three or four days duration could be run from centres like Goroka, using the rest houses for overnight stays. In this way the younger tourist could see the various areas and their primitive people right off the beaten track as we saw them around Kainantu.”