Traveling In New Guinea.

Traveling in New Guinea is like travelling in another world.Unless you have experienced it you wouldn’t believe it.In the mountains where I was there were no roads,or transport.travel between stations was limited to walking along a track ,that resembled a goat track or plane,some very brave souls tried to get from one place to the other by motor bike,not many succeeded in accomplishing this task.

Our Priest Father Tim announced one day, that he was taking us to visit a neighbouring station, all of twenty kilometres away,as they were having a religious feast there.
“Yes Father and how are you going to do that ?“i asked him.
“We will go on the tractor”was his reply.Yes I can see that,us all perched up on the tractor.
‘Who you thinking of taking?” I asked him.
“You, Clarie and I’ll take the two priest from the other stations,Tony and Jiles”
Oh I could just see that ,no road and trying to get us all on the tractor.
“Where will we all sit then?”I asked him
: Oh I will build a seat for you to sit on”,Oh my God I thought this is going to be interesting .

True to his word he built a seat,imagine this a tractor with what looked like a park bench coming out from the back of it .Then it had a rail to hold us in and to hang on too,not the most comfortable of seats,but yes it was a seat.Now I could see that there was one thing wrong with this seat, we would not all fit.I pointed this out to Father ,
“No there is enough room Clarie will sit on the mud guard and Thomas the house boy on the other”
“What you expect them to sit on the mud guard “I replied
“Oh they always do they are used to it”,well I thought this was going to be one trip I am sure to remember.

We planned the trip to take two days ,with an overnight stay at a station on the way.
The first morning we were all ready to get started early ,as it usually rained in the afternoon,and we didn’t fancy getting soaked if we could help it .Tony,Jiles,and myself got seated on the seat,others climbed up on the tractor.We had a good turn out to say goodbye to us,think the village people thought we were mad really,they could have been right too!

Now we had to climb along this ridge, down the other side into the valley, and climb up again onto the top of the other ridge,not far really but with just a track it was a momentous task.The track was barely wide enough for the tractor ,plus it had a shear drop over the side ,I pointed this out to Father a few times, as he went closer and closer to my side of the cliff,but after awhile I came to the conclusion , he was not at all pleased with my back seat driving,I decided to shut my eyes as well as my mouth.We travelled along like this for a couple of hours ,without any real mishaps .That is of course not counting the fact that Jiles Tony and I had nearly had heart failure several times.,as the tractor started to slip precariously towards the edge of the mountain.Each time we protested we were told that it was all in hand,sit quietly and let me do my job.As I am sure you can tell it was not put to us in quite that way.

There was one problem that we were not even going to think about till we arrived, that was we had to cross the river,another reason we were leaving before the rain.We arrived at the river and Father said 
“Well not too high we should get through that “,well I am glad he thinks its not too bad looks very fast to me,but he has been here longer than me,by this stage I had learnt my lesson ,”What lesson is that you ask”,Well keep my mouth shut of course.
Well not sure if you people have ever driven through a fast running river on a tractor,it was not a comfortable feeling, watching the water rise up to your ankles ,and with each roll of the wheel the water went further and further up your leg.Not at all comfortable wanting to yell out that you think it is not the right time to cross,maybe wait a few hours ,but I knew that my comments would not be appreciated at all ,so I closed my eyes and hoped for the best,and held on a little harder to Tony.The old tractor rolled and groaned across the river and just when I thought that I was going to be better off, getting off and making a swim for it ,as the water was now lapping my knees ,we rolled out onto the bank on the other side.

I was very glad when we reached the village and found a place to spend the night
Now after sitting on our park bench ,as we had christened it ,I was very glad for a walk around the village ,and a chat to the people ,even if they thought it was a very funny thing for us fellows. to be doing.After a wash and some food and a chat we settled down for a restless night,You ever slept on a wooden bench not comfortable and mosquitos make for very little sleep.So next morning everyone was feeling a little worse for ware.

We set off on the climb back up the ridge along a track that to me was non existent , but after awhile I seen that there was a track, as we were now to go over a small bridge.Well bridge was wishful thinking, as there was not much left of it,seemed to me it was just a couple of pieces of wood suspended in mid air . Oh no we are not going to drive over that I thought ,but Father in his gang ho attitude just drove straight onto it.We hung on as the tractor slowly crept across, the wood straining with the weight of us,we reached the other side as the wheel on my side, was a fraction of a centimetre from slipping off the wood.

We traveled along this path for a few hours ,with poor Tony in very bad pain today.now Jiles and I had a bit of covering on our bums but poor Tony was built like a match stick.He had some very rubbed patches on his bum ,as a result he found it hard to find a place that was comfortable to sit.He would get off walk awhile beside the tractor ,well he had no trouble keeping up to us as it was a slow pace we were setting.

The rest of the trip was just endless small tracks. where even I got off to walk to relieve my poor sore bum.The other reason we all walked at one time was ,we were sure the tractor was going over the side,and we had made a pact with Tim to shut up and let him do the driving .Well even if we were shutting up,it didn’t mean we had to go over with him. we arrived at the station that afternoon ,to cheers as if we were royalty.But I can tell you this royal did everything in her power ,to cadge a ride on a plane back,I was not the only one Tony and Jiles all got on the same plane ,we left the others to come back on the plane ,you may think us cowards ,I tell you I didn’t care what people thought. it was one trip I will never forget.