Accent Norfolk

Hotel Plan To

Island's History

Norfolk Islanders and Austr ians will be offered minor share iddings in a proposed SUSI lillion luxury colonial hotel for

Kingston, Norfolk Island, should

lie Australian Government ap rove the project and sell 17 cres of land to the developers.

Mr. Paul Stocker, a US lawyer id historian who is Australian man ner for the developers, The Wendell 'est Company, told PIM in Novem ir the company would welcome cal shareholdings in the project.

He said Norfolk’s Paradise Hotel being bought (for an undisclosed im) from Mr. Eric Semple on con tion Australia sold an adjoining 17 :res of land for the new hotel, r. Stocker had personally bought ) acres of land behind the pro ved hotel site, looking out at fillip and Nepean Islands.

Norfolk Island Council had ap oved his company’s plans, with :hnical conditions, and he would bmit engineering and construction ans to Canberra by about May next ar. With the plans would also go request to buy the land.

Mr. Stocker said the proposed •tel would consist of about 100 tits in one long line. They would ch have a fireplace and be built stone and genuine timber.

Ruins of Norfolk’s convict era >uld be refurbished and used as rt of bars and dining rooms. The lole project would represent )rfolk’s early history.

The two-bed units would cost out SA2O a day, without meals, d the project would put the island n the international tourist map”, said.

Mr. Stocker said his company did t aim to take holidayers away •m current hotels which mainly ered for economy-class and family irists. Wendell-West was interested attracting people prepared to pay >mething more, for something Ferent”. (One of Wendell-West’s principals singer Pat Boone, but Mr. Stocker d Mr. Boone was not personally erested in Norfolk. The Norfolk n was “my baby”, Mr. Stocker d.)

Man Friday Extension Plan

For Fiji's Coral Coast

THE first step in a SAIOO,OOO ex tension programme for Fiji’s Coral Coast holiday resort, Man Friday, was taken in November with the completion of a new 21 mile (access) road from the Queen’s Road to the resort itself.

Man Friday, a magnificently-sited holiday spot previously hindered by a bad road, is operated by Austra lian couple, Frank and Joan Ransom.

They own an equal share with Mr.

George Jorgensen, Sydney business man and yachtsman (he and his yacht Veninde 11 will be in the next Sydney-Hobart race).

Two other investors, Suva building contractor Mr. W. C. Hines and English businessman Mr. Dick Russell, who is now working in Nigeria, have taken a share to coin cide with the extension to Man Friday.

By June next year, according to ex-Northern Territory cattleman Frank Ransom, his beachside resort should have accommodation for 90 people, situated in 30 separate bure units.

The plans include an impressively spacious central bure, 140 ft long and 40 ft high, containing a dining room, bar, lounge and kitchen. All bures, solidly built from concrete blocks and iron roofings, will be trimmed and covered with native building materials and thatching.

Second Fiji Visitors Bureau

Office For Australia

PROVIDING the Fiji Government allocates suitable funds and there seems little reason why it shouldn’t—the Fiji Visitors Bureau will open its second Australian office in May or June next year.

The new office, in Melbourne, will take some of the load of promoting Fiji on the Australian market from Sydney manager, Mr, Russ Gribble’s shoulders.

Two New Airstrips

For The Solomons

THE Solomons will get two new internal airstrips— at Ballalae, Shortland Islands, and on Nusatupe Island, near Gizo—both in the Western District.

Work began in October on the strip at Nusatupe, which will be just over a mile from Gizo township and will be more convenient for air visitors to Gizo, who currenly use Barakoma or Munda airstrips several miles away.

The BSIP Government has made a compulsory acquisition of 37-acre Nusatupe Island and its surrounding 100 acres of reef and seabed for the project.

When completed, the strip will be 3,600 ft long. A small jetty and a terminal building will also be con structed, Ballalae is a former wartime strip in good condition. Hopes are it will serve the Shortlands, just south of NG’s Bougainville, better than the current strip at Mono, in the Treasury Islands. In October, Western District Council workers had cleared an area nearly 2,000 ft long and 360 ft wide.

Catering School

For Port Moresby

While Fiji is still discussing the need for a food and catering train ing school to assist its hotel industry, Papua-New Guinea has announced plans to establish one. Construction work on the new school, which is part of the Port Moresby Technical College, will begin soon. There will be a four-year food and catering course for those wanting to work in hotels, motels and restaurants, and short courses for waiters and waitresses. New Guineans with an education of form two or higher will be able to attend.

P-NG is looking at her tourists, too. Miss Sumiko Tanaka, from Osaka, Japan, one of the first Japanese to visit the territory as a tourist, said that she was met every where in P-NG with warmth and kindness.

Photo: Chin H. Meen.