Island On

Wheels

Fen miles or so of dirt road not much road in anyone’s guage but few Pacific Islands ild put it to more diverse uses n Lord Howe Island, that canic speck about 400 miles th-east of Sydney.

PIM writer who visited the island in May found that Lord Howe has 40 cars, utilities and trucks.

including a couple of three-wheeled (“reactionary”, so the locals say) Japanese jobs.

But by far the most popular form of transport is the bicycle—they whizz everywhere, and practically everyone uses them. One enterprising islander has a fleet of 60, which he hires out to visitors at $2 a week.

There are over 40 motor-cycles and scooters buzzing around, dodging cows, pheasants and people alike.

Happily there are few serious ac cidents as everyone (there are about 260 permanent residents and over 200 tourists at holiday times) has to adhere to the 15 mph maximum speed limit.

However, Mr. Jim Whistler, editor of the Lord Howe Island Signal, spoke recently of the numbers of small accidents which had occurred this year—especially on Friday nights, on the way home from clubs.

Lord Howe Island is one of those areas of the Pacific where visitors are welcomed with open arms. All, directly or indirectly, are dependent on tourism and also there is that simple Island hospitality for which LHI has a better than good name.

In July, a PIM article will look at accommodation on the island, and survey general development trends there.

T>AGO PAGO’S Intercontinental A Hotel, which was opened in December, 1965, will probably have an operating loss for 1966 of about US$ll7,OOO, according to Mr. J.

Hamilton, general manager of the American Samoa Development Cor poration.

Mr. Hamilton said this in April at a basic wage hearing in Pago Pago.

The shareholders of the corpora tion are Samoans, who put up about U 55350,000 in payroll deductions to

build the hotel. The rest of the money $1,500,000 was lent by the Small Business Administration in Washington.

The loan is repayable over 20 years from 1968 at about 5 per cent, interest.

Pago Pago’s Samoa Times reports that at the annual general meeting of the corporation in January, the shareholders were told that the hotel, with a 40 per cent, bed occupancy, had done business worth $623,000 during the year, but it needed a 55 per cent, occupancy to make a profit.

Airlines of nsw has had to cancel three flying-boat cruises of the Pacific Islands it planned for July, August and September because French authorities in New Caledonia have told the airline that flying-boat landing space in Noumea harbour was “closed”.

The airline uses two Sandringhams to operate a service from Sydney to Lord Howe Island. pi M’s good friend, Jim Shortall, who occasionally visits Ecuador as radio officer on a Standard Fruit Co. ship plying between South and Central America and the United States, reports that Guayaquil news papers now regularly advertise air tours to the Galapagos Islands, which, until recently, have been almost as isolated as Easter Island. A regular civilian service is provided by a DC-3 aircraft of TAME (Transposes Aereos Militares Ecuatorianos). The Galapagos, famous for their huge iguanas and tortoises—“galapagos” means “tortoises” in Spanish—were annexed by Ecuador in 1832.

re not "in" at Lord Howe Island these without a bicycle, as two pretty sitors to the island found in April.

Photo: Richard Morris.