PNG: Our sultry neighbour

Papua New Guinea’s volatile volcanoes have rocked its people for centuries – but the resilient spirit of these islanders continues to rise above the cloaking ash.

Rabaul assaults the senses. She’s hot. She’s dirty. She’s not at all the genteel South Pacific lady of days gone by. Gone are the stately avenues of mango trees, gone the whitewashed buildings of the post-war era, gone the gin-sipping expats gathered on wide verandahs to escape the heat.

Today, Rabaul – on the northern tip of New Britain, Papua New Guinea – is a volcano town. Ash pours from the cone of Mt Tavurvur, 6.5 km to the south-east, and hitches a ride on the sweating air. Metre upon metre of the sticky black stuff stifles the streets, the buildings and the hardy souls who dwell here.

Yet for all this, life persists. You’ll see it in the bloom of a frangipani – purest white, flashes of yellow, and half the size of a man’s hand. You’ll see it in the grin of a boy who’s just reeled in a string of skipjack he’s off to market to sell, or in the banter of a father, mother and son peddling handicrafts a long stone’s throw from the base of the tempestuous beast that stole their land and with it their subsistence living. From cloying jungle to Simpson Harbour – the town’s bookends – people here are committed to surviving.

Susie Alexander can attest to this. She’s Rabaul born and bred – minus five boarding-school years in Australia and a brief affair with the Young Nationals; she worked in its Gold Coast office in the late ’80s. Today she runs the Rabaul Hotel, a welcome respite for visitors from the
sapping heat and ash.

“What an idyllic childhood I had,” she says. “Before the volcano erupted in ’94 this town was wonderful. People, parties; we lived in paradise. There was aristocracy, plantation houses, tennis courts. We had three cinemas, clubs, swimming pools. People made millions; the kina [PGK, PNG’s unit of currency] was worth more than the US dollar. Rabaul was called the ‘Pearl of the Pacific’. Now it’s more Pompeii than pearl.”

For the full article, see Issue 97 of Australian Geographic.