A neat mixture for the tourists

Now they’re mixing Polynesia with Melanesia to get a different kind of tourists resort.

Bougainville’s 28-acre Arovo Island, right at the entrance to Kieta harbour is about to welcome its first visitors after almost two years of publicity-free preparation (most un usual in the Pacific visitor business).

Arovo, housing 30 to 40 people in separate bungalows, is being staffed by natives from Mortlock and Tas man islands east of Bougainville, who have a Polynesian background.

They’re a cheerful, good-looking people, excellent sailors and makers of artifacts whom Arovo’s managing director, Captain Bill Hallam, got to know well during the many years he was an inter-island skipper.

Arovo is to be linked with Kieta by a ferry now being buillt in Taiwan.

Shareholders in Arovo include Captain Hallam, Russell and Hermon Slade and Bill Tyree, of Sydney, Mr. Fred Archer, of Rabaul, and the late Mrs. Frances Kroening.