Chapter 5 The Cauldron

Chapter 5

The Cauldron

Finally the money arrived a few days before our visas expired. My mind was still set on finding a job so I flew to Hong Kong with the intention of being an English teacher.

First interview I discovered a university degree was required. I’d been offered a fake degree at a low price the week before in Bangkok but I hadn’t known that a degree was a prerequisite for employment as an English teacher. I hardly knew anything. One of the young ladies waiting to be interviewed quietly told me of a place I should contact, but I was too silly to follow it up.

Instead, Miss T and I went out to a large island nearby to see some pandas. A large prison was the main industry on the island. Later we were hitch-hiking along the circuitous main road when we were picked up by the gaol’s superintendent and his charming wife. They invited us for dinner in their luxurious apartment, inside the huge gaol complex, before Tina and I spent our first night behind bars.

Without a job in an expensive place I was just wasting money so I bought tickets back to Australia. I had considered flying to Micronesia but once inside the busy travel agent I forgot about that idea.

As soon as we arrived in Sydney I got in touch with Helen to let her know we were back in Australia. She said she’d come down to meet us. The sound of her voice got me smoking. She sounded so different.

I also called my old boss who offered me my job back. I said yes, and organized for my daughter to stay with her grandmother in Nuigini for a few weeks while I was ‘in-country’ doing the mountain and the Duke of York islands again, for excellent payment.

A couple of days later I met Helen at the train station and she came to stay at my mother’s place. It was good to see her, but I was very cautious in the way I dealt with her because she’d changed so much.

She wouldn't let me take Tina with me, even though she’d be staying with Elsie while in Nuigini, but she didn’t seem to have a clue about what she was doing, so I had to ring my boss and cancel out of the trip which meant I would never have the chance to work for them again. I was exhibiting the strange passivity bred into me by years of trying to be nice, and seeking approval for leftist thinking.

During the night Helen was up and about, walking around, going to the toilet, making noises and when I asked her what she was doing she told me she was suffering withdrawals and had cramps in her stomach.

Whether that was true or not I have no idea, but I thought it was at the time. I asked her to come to the Wayside Chapel in the morning for some counselling so that she could make a plan to ‘beat the habit’ but she said she didn't want to. Once again I’d over-reacted I guess, I told her she either promised to come with me to do something about the problem or leave my mother’s house. It was six by then. She elected to leave. Stupid me. Stupid us. I had a strangely moralistic view of heroin and I had no idea of how often, how much, if ever she was using the stuff. Maybe she was just taking pills, or trying to scare me, who knows?

Two days later I caught the train and then the bus and finally made it home. The place looked good, a bit run down, but it was a relief to be in my own house again and Miss T was having a good time playing on the grass and pulling out her toys onto the polished hardwood floor. I enjoyed watching the fire crackling away into the night.

The papaya and banana patch was thriving. What had been a bare piece of earth after I’d chopped away the thick lantana was now a shady area of bananas and thick green papaya trees all laden with ripening fruit. The soil had been ‘laying fallow’ for years and I’d added generous amounts of fertilizer so the plants had responded accordingly.

So okay, I was making every mistake that I could have made, I can see that now, but who does react in the correct manner? I can tell you it was a multi-faceted problem with heavy emotional content and I am a man of many moods and weak determination.

Anyway, Helen showed up a couple of days later on the back of a motor bike and took Tina to town without a helmet or jacket and I was getting mad at her for becoming so irresponsible. Although it was somewhat hypocritical of me because I’d ridden around Ko Samui with Tina not wearing a helmet but you’d probably understand if I’d described the rider. Some guy I’d never seen before that looked like he’s just washed out of the nearest drain. I should have just said “No, she can’t go”, but I was not being decisive. My judgement was blurred by still trying to be nice all of the time. A symptom of a personality without strong foundations.

We lived together in our house for about six weeks and Helen just came and went as she pleased while I looked after our daughter and cleaned up the garden and the orchard and finished off a dozen small building jobs.

Tina and I lived day to day and I made another attempt to put some sense into Helen’s head by inviting the district nurse out to mediate a talk between us. I didn't know the woman very well but she’d been involved with Helen’s pre-natal stuff and I knew Helen had a lot of respect for her.

It turned out to be my first important contact with a "this is a recording" style feminist. The nurse, despite being a mature woman, believed, or pretended to believe, everything and anything Helen told her but disregarded anything I said, so she didn't help at all. I’ll probably never really understand what happened, but it was a chance lost.

I was still very much involved in the community so on the night of the equinox there was a party we went to. I was talking to some female friends in the kitchen of the school when I was asked to do the honours of lighting the fireworks. I was pleased to be asked and left Tina in the care of the ladies huddling in the kitchen while I went out to the designated place but it was only a minute or two later when I was told Tina had had an accident so I rushed back and found her shrieking in pain with her face completed covered in blood. I quickly wiped enough blood away with the palm of my hand to find its source. A neat hole punched in the centre of her forehead.

I calmed her down and cleaned her up and took her home, quite angry that those stupid women couldn’t be trusted to look after a small child for five minutes. Later when I investigated I found that she had been allowed to wander away. They were probably too busy gossiping to notice, and she’d stepped down the hippie-made steps into the darkness attempting to follow me.

Steps have an international standard dimension but the hippies hadn’t worked that out, and probably never will. Because the second step dropped further than usual Tina had stepped into thin air and then fallen forward, impacting the concrete path with her forehead right where a piece of aggregate protruded from the concrete path. The small hole that emitted so much blood was like a gateway for evil, especially on that auspicious occasion.

After a while I just couldn't stand being there in the same house with Helen any longer. When she went off to town I’d lay awake until late at night listening to the occasional cars, imagining them to be turning into our driveway, or worse, stopping to drop her off at the top of the drive which was a couple of hundred meters away, because then I’d be holding my breath waiting to see if Helen would appear at the front door a few minutes later.

I never had any idea where she was or when we may see her next. Even John, her former partner at the time that I’d met Helen, arrived one day to find out what was going on. He was concerned about what he’d been hearing even after not seeing her for years.

The fridge and stove had been sold, anyway they were gone. The big gas-bottle was leaning against the wall with the pipe leading to nowhere so we had no choice but to cook on the fire again but it wasn't until Christmas day that I realized how bad things were getting. We had very little money and there was nothing left in the house to eat, I couldn’t get the car out of the driveway, and all of the local shops, eight kilometres away, were closed, so I had to hitch-hike fifty kilometres across to the coast with Tina to buy some food. We had shared the first solitary mango from the tree I’d planted the day Tina was born. It had a rosy pink blush and tasted sweet but having the shape of a heart and having been picked a little early it had a tinge of sourness.

Suddenly dazzled by electricity and hot showers I rented a room in an old house although we hitched back up to our house at least once a week to try to keep in contact with Helen. It seemed like magic being able to walk into a room and flick a switch to have light and didn’t cost much either.

Everything improved for us then because we were out of the depressing environment where even simple things were difficult and I met a beautiful Scandinavian woman named Gail who Tina really liked.

Gail had just completed a massage course so we started doing two-person therapeutic massages, for money of course. It must have been the best massage ever offered in that town because we were both fit and full of energy. We’d both been studying anatomy so combined with what I’d learned during the acupuncture course, which included shiatsu and herbal medicines, we had the skills and motivation to give the most excellent massage.

Gail started at the face and I began at the feet and we finished with four-handed raking before some expansive effleurage. Perfecto!

A few days after the wet season rains had eased off I went up to retrieve the car but I’d left the keys in the house and Helen had taken it. We both owned it so that was fair enough. I didn’t really need a car at the coast.

One evening when I was just putting the finishing touches to a portable massage table I heard some heavy footsteps outside and looked up to see two policemen coming around the side of the van. The caravan windows pivoted out from the side of the van so the big police officer hit the aluminium frame with the side of his head, which put him in a very bad mood. They had a warrant for my arrest for failing to appear in court on charges of malicious injury to police and resist arrest incurred at the forest protest so they took me to the lock-up.

Processing was short and sweet so soon after I was placed in the room-sized cell I made myself comfortable and looked around at the first prison cell I’d ever spend the night in. It reminded me of when I’d been a monk so I just chilled-out and enjoyed the enforced isolation.

I was sleeping soundly in the silent cell until I being woken about midnight by light pouring through the steel door opened just long enough for my new cell mate to be put inside. I didn't look up but went immediately back to sleep.

About six I became aware of movement in the dimly lit cell and knew it was the other guy shuffling over to the bare bowl against the wall. I just stayed where I was and felt a bit embarrassed for him sitting there farting and groaning as what sounded like a huge amount of shit was deposited. Eventually he finished and the flush was music to the nose.

I lay there quietly for another twenty minutes while the air cleared and then sat up to mindfully begin the morning asanas which were part of my daily routine.

Stretching and breathing and bending and relaxing, round and around, with not a word spoken. I couldn't help but notice the other man, who was older than me, needed a shave and he’d been using a bicycle helmet for a pillow.

I resented his presence a little because I’d found the enforced peace of the cell ideally suited to contemplation, and the isolation had given me time to concentrate on the present without distraction.

Soon he got up and began to copy my movements so I slowed down a bit for him to work out the sequence as we went. We both lay on the floor in shavasana as I explained to him the next posture and the pattern of breathing required. We finished off with some Om chanting which sounded substantial within the solid brick cell; almost like a little temple.

When we’d finished I asked him where he'd come from and what he was doing there. He wasn't sure where he’d ridden from, which was my first clue to a substantial irregularity.

But, until a few years before Peter had been studying medicine at university where he was also the president of the hang gliding club so he'd been married for seven weeks when he miscalculated a turn while soaring and subsequently collided with a tree before being tossed onto the ground. Next day he regained consciousness with irreparable damage to the inner brain and short term memory. Four years of studies were lost. He was no longer consistently capable of distinguishing dream from reality. He experienced feelings of paranoia and disorientation.

Soon his wife had divorced him, he was no longer a student, nor even the President of the Hang Gliding Association.

Peter had chosen the road and his bicycle and he'd been traveling around ever since trying to adjust his different self to an ever changing world where a lot of us seem to be having trouble distinguishing dream from reality. He'd ridden into Beachside late in the evening and attempted to find some low cost accommodation which was all full and so he ended up at the hotel where he paid the night's fee but somehow became involved in a difference of opinion which became an argument and was all over when the police appeared at the surreptitious request of the licensee. He seemed bewildered by what had happened.

All I could suggest to him was that he should copy what was taken for normal so no-one would notice the difference.

About eight the solid steel door swung open again and a burly sergeant took Peter away. I was disturbed about what would happen next. I felt sorry for him but had no way to help.

My girlfriend was a real health freak with a sweet disposition, and looked like it. Glowing eyes, clear tanned skin, wild blonde hair and athletic body. She arrived at the station with Tina soon after Peter had left. She’d brought some flowers and a small bag of healthy food.

While nibbling on the wholesome snacks I decided that I really didn’t want to be in the cell any more so I called a friend to bail me out for $500 rather than stay there for six more hours, so I was soon back at the beach with Gail and Tina.

When I did appear before the court, carrying Tina in my arms, the magistrate rescinded the bail and deferred the proceedings to some future date which never ended up happening anyway.

As well as the massage service we had a scheme whereby each afternoon we strung up a whole lot of frangipani leis which we’d take to town in the evening and sell in restaurants, and then spend the money on really enjoying ourselves. Eating, drinking, and a taxi home. Money finished.

We began to sell seafood in the caravan parks from a mobile freezer pulled by a slightly rusty 4WD. It was the best time of the year for tourists so we made enough money to buy another old car.

Gail and I were overflowing with primal energy so we enjoyed the beach lifestyle to the max and we were so busy it enabled me some respite from the dramas of the previous months.

Making love is a wonderful thing to varying degrees, the most obvious miracle a zillion people experience separately. Sex is near the hub of the wheel. Close to the centre. Upstream, overlooking a panorama that could make you faint. It is where male and female meet, where the intensity of feeling is usually unparalleled during a normal day’s experience. Certainly pleasure comes in many forms, a continuous spiral of unlimited possibilities. But sex is the most climactic, most shared, memorable and so often longed for, and sometimes the most easily accessible.

We basically did the early era beachside experience. Being healthy, being happy, being kindly, doing markets, and doing massage. It was an excellent lifestyle but it all came to a sudden end one night when I went to meet Gail at her girlfriend’s house but she didn’t turn up so I spent the evening chatting with her gorgeous friend and ended up sleeping in her girlfriend’s bed. “There was only one double bed! We didn’t have sex!” I insisted.

“But you would have if she’d let you!” was something I couldn’t argue with. 

I was starting a media course in the New Year so I moved closer to the college and shared a house with a solicitor, staying friends with Gail but hardly ever seeing each other.

Helen had also moved out of our house and was living with an Afghani. He seemed like a nice guy selling clothes at the markets and she was getting herself sorted out so I went to visit them, to give her the ring I'd been holding on to.

Soon after, she took off to Sydney for a few weeks and came back with an Iranian guy who was obviously into junk and things were looking bad again, especially when I got caught in some traffic in town and Helen appeared from nowhere and grabbed Tina out of the child’s safety seat in the back of the car. How could I have stopped her? I was straddling a pedestrian crossing at a busy intersection in the middle of town.

So then I was having to drive up to smaller Country town to keep an eye on my daughter outside the hotel while her mother was inside indulging in whatever was going on. It was a bad time and I was beginning to get myself into a different kind of trouble because I’d been foolish enough to think that making a few phone calls to the local policeman could do something about shutting down the flow of heroin into the town. All I got for my efforts was the message that if I didn't watch out I’d get my head blown off.

I was even told to my face that I'd get my head blown off. Must have been popular junky talk of the time.

I went looking for Helen one afternoon and found her in the main street sitting in the front seat of a Holden ute between two desperadoes, one of whom was in the process of shooting up. I just wanted her out of there, back home, with us all together again. But how? I was extremely concerned about everything that was going on but even more confused about the best way forward.

Things started happening around the place when a couple of obvious junkies were busted and one of them bit a cop during the struggle and then told the police he had hepatitis B.

All of a sudden the heroin epidemic became local front page news. Helen told me she had also contracted hepatitis and she looked very sick. Fortunately the next afternoon she asked me to take Tina because she “couldn't cope”.

I thanked her for being so sensible, put Miss T into the safety seat, and immediately drove home to pack the car. It doesn't seem like I cared too much about what happened to Helen but by then she was a law unto herself and my primary concern was getting Tina away from danger. I wasn’t going to have another ‘kid-jacking’. My patience had worn very thin. Threadbare you might say.

The next morning I drove north with a couple of friends who wanted to go to the forest protest in the far north. Usually I do all of the driving but it was a three thousand kilometre trip so during the early second morning I let Peter take over. When I woke up I saw he was driving at a hundred kilometres per hour with the temperature gauge on 'panic!' The car was never the same after that but I didn't make him feel bad, because I considered him to be a good friend, whatever that meant.

When we arrived at the protest camp a big action was in process to try to stop the local council from putting a road through the national park, to a small town about thirty kilometres up the coast.

There were all kinds of excuses put forward for building the road through pristine rainforest but it seemed obvious that the real reason was to open up a whole lot of very lucrative real estate. North Queensland was one of the most corrupt places anywhere at the time.

To check out the unique rainforest which the council was intending to build the road through I decided to walk along the intended route.

A couple of people wanted to come with us; an old friend and a gypsy girl. I knew it would be a full day so I made sure they were ready to leave at very first light.

At the end of the existing dirt road we plunged straight into virgin tropical rainforest which grew right down to the beach in the many sheltered bays so part of the way we walked on the beach. There were many hills but it was an absolute privilege to walk through that magnificent forest.

We each had a backpack and how I managed to keep ahead with Tina was to sit her on top of my pack and march on ahead of the others far enough so that then she could get down to walk for a while until the others caught up. I’d then get going again with Miss T riding on top of the pack.. Over and over, until we'd finally covered the thirty-three kilometres and arrived just on dark at my old friend Chuck’s new house and family. I remember ‘the gypsy girl’ saying to me “I don’t know how you did that!”

Because of my previous forest protest experience the organisers asked me to be actively involved in the protest. I was reluctant because I’d already been arrested at both of the previous protests and one case was still pending, but, I’d just finished a video course and there was a broadcast quality camera so I put it together to record the events. I knew video was important for historical, legal and safety reasons.

A camp for a couple of hundred people had been set up close to the end of the existing road. The main strategy was to block bulldozer access to the forest by burying two lines of people up to their necks at the end of the road where the virgin rainforest began. They’d already dug the holes and poured concrete into the bottoms of them with high tensile chain embedded in it.

Each morning, if confrontation looked likely, the volunteers would slide down into the holes, lock the chains onto their ankles, then have the hole back-filled around them. One old geezer even had the padlock attached around the base of his balls!

About fifty police set up camp a kilometre away and waited for the bulldozers to arrive. There were two, the biggest being a six hundred and fifty horsepower monster with a blade seven feet tall and seventeen feet wide.

Until then I’d been setting up the video gear, buying spares and making it work. There was no mains power so we were very limited in the amount of battery power available and could only recharge in the evenings.

A local land-holder asked me if I’d be involved in a stunt to stop the monstrous machines from getting into the forest. It required a very early morning start and a long wait in the tall grass by the side of the road.

At about six we finally heard the bulldozers engines start and after a warm-up they were easily heard, and felt, rumbling along the road towards us. The first vehicle in the convoy was a police van and as soon as it had passed my assistant and I jumped out of the grass and set up the tripod with the camera pointing at the approaching bulldozers and support vehicles.

A fellow dressed in a suit, carrying a briefcase, walked out to stand in the middle of the road blocking the forward movement of the dozer and he was waving a document in his right hand which was a signed statutory declaration saying that the land the dozers were on was the private property of the people whose signatures appeared on the document and they demanded to be asked for their formal permission before the dozers would be allowed to move either backward or forward.

Within fifteen seconds the police van had reversed up so I had a screen full of irate coppers trying to get me off the road and arrest me at the same time while I was yelling “Press” and struggling to keep the camera focused on the action.

It was a fun event and we managed to keep everyone tied up for several hours until the police began arresting anyone who was in the way so the dozer continued into the national park to where the protesters were dug in.

After being read the riot act the women were dug out by hand. The police men and women were on their knees with little plastic scoops taking out a couple of handfuls of dirt at a time, but once the woman were out an operator moved in with a backhoe and began digging out the men, despite the danger.

There were various delays caused by dedicated activists leaping onto the machines and chaining themselves around the arm or whatever, but gradually everyone was dug out and arrested. Amazingly, no-one was injured.

When the protest was over I sold my car and bought tickets to my favourite island. At the end of the first semester at ‘art school’ the teacher had told me that he couldn’t teach me anything because I had my own naive style. A good thing because my lack of formal education  meant that I wasn’t ‘impersonating’ anyone else. Okay. So I decided to rent an isolated house along the coast not far from my favourite lake and try again to write the book called Fallen Giant; the manuscript I’d thrown away on Bangkok.

As it turned out no sooner were we off the plane than I was asked to do a diving job. It was only meant to be one dive to find out what was obstructing a pile that a Japanese construction company was trying to drive into the bottom of the bay so that they could build a new wharf to better export tropical rainforest logs to be made into plywood so I said yes.

Immediately you can see the dilemma that confronted me. I'd just spent several weeks as a committed activist being part of a protest about rainforest destruction and there I was being offered money to do a dive for the Japanese planet-rapers. I needed the money and I loved diving so it is pointless to try to justify myself any more than that.

The one day dive turned into a three month project because as soon as I got down to where the steel tube was sticking out of the sand and pumice I could see that there was a huge log obstructing the pile from being driven any deeper.

The method of construction involved hanging a one metre diameter pipe from a crane and lowering the end until it settled into the sand and pumice which constituted the sea floor at that particular point. Once the steel tube was deep enough to support itself in an upright vertical position a four tonne vibrator was lifted by crane and attached to the top of the pipe. When the vibrator was switched on the pipe was vibrated into the sandy pumice until it was so deep that the top end was almost at the level of the sea’s surface and it became necessary to remove the vibrator and weld on a new length of pipe.

But there was not just one log, there were heaps of them. As soon as I entered the water I could see the entire shore-line was a mass of tangled logs buried in mud, bark, pumice, old tyres of varying sizes, and lengths of chain and steel cable.

It was obvious that over time the shoreline had grown with every wet season. The red earth quickly turns to mud and washes away in the torrential tropical downpours so typical of the region. The mud had buried the hardwood logs that had bounced off the barges when they were being loaded. Logs would fall in, mud would bury them, and then more logs would fall in. A process that had taken years.

Most people automatically assume a timber log will float but quite a few varieties of tropical hardwood are so dense they sink. For that reason flat barges had been used to take the sinkers out to the ships so that they could be loaded by the ship's cranes. The skidder and loader drivers were generally older guys perpetually stoned on betel nut so whenever a log fell into the water and sunk it wouldn't bother them. Out of sight out of mind. There were plenty more where that one came from.

After briefing the site manager about the log problem he accepted my plan for clearing the area so after a few phone calls to head-office it was confirmed. Everything we needed would be on site for a tomorrow morning start. All food and accommodation was supplied in a really cool thatched roof house right on the beach behind a row of she-oaks. My daughter went to pre-school or was looked-after by the household staff. 

Back at the log dump I organized a crew of about a dozen local guys plus a skidder, a large dozer, and an aluminium dinghy with outboard. 

It was a really exciting job but it was also very dangerous because I was working with heavy machinery under water. For a start I wore steel-capped boots instead of swim fins. To be able to apply strength underwater I had to carry a lot of lead around my waist.

The first swim over the site had to be done delicately to try to avoid the gunk being brought to life by any disturbance of what was essentially a huge compost heap that had built up over many years. A few steps in the black slime would send clouds of it spiralling out like cuttlefish ink until the entire area was black so a very gentle hover around on the surface above the worksite each morning was the best way to get an over-view. 

But even getting into the water could be a hazard. I usually kitted-up and jumped in from the beginnings of the wharf at a place close to the van, without thinking twice about it, but one morning I jumped in feet first of course, but as the bubbles cleared I looked around and was shocked to see a length of reo-rod sticking up out of the sand right beside me. A couple of feet to the right and I would have been skewered. The idea of it made me shiver and I gave the workers a good talking to about trying to spear fish like that.

As soon as work began, to get a sling onto a log, or some bark moved, the water began to turn black, in clouds. Large areas would be black with narrowing windows of reasonably clear water in between. A bit like flying through a thunderstorm in an aeroplane.

I adjusted for the limited, and then zero vision, by forming the strongest mental image I could from the initial swim-over and placing a few marker buoys. There was some tidal flow but it was never strong enough to clear the black water. That only happened overnight.

A lot more air is used when working hard under water. To check air required the placing of the gauge on the glass of the facemask, and to dig down to buried logs required a large fire hose, which was fun to ride around on. I lost my almost new Seiko solar-powered underwater watch while digging under a log to shackle a sling.

One large problem that could cause safety issues. No-one spoke English, the local guys were stoned on betel nut all the time, and we were working with heavy machinery in water which was putrid and pitch black as soon as the first log was pulled. As one log was slung up and extracted it usually pulled several more up out of the compost heap of pumice, mud, and bark which had been laid down over a ten year period. Huge bubbles of methane gas poured out of the fissures. It was very unpleasant and dangerous but also exciting. The only living things there were the highly venomous scorpion fish that seemed to be always hovering around whenever the water was translucent.

Three Japanese workers kept watch and pushed on with the construction while I cleared the logs away for them. With every pile driven the water was deeper and more obstacles and bigger logs were discovered buried in the pumice and industrial detritus, sometimes three or four metres down so I’d have to use the fire hose to ‘dig’ my way down until I could shackle a sling onto it..

During the job I’d finally received my first reply to my letters to Helen. She said that she’d been beaten up in the park and then had an epileptic fit and ended up in hospital where someone had finally broken through her defiant front and talked some sense to her. Finally, as she wrote, she'd “realized what a fool I’ve been”.

I felt that things were going to be getting much better.

I was really pleased, about the epiphany, not the hospital, and wrote back straight away suggesting that she should come up to meet us as soon as she could. There were plenty of small yachts around for sale so I thought it would be a good idea for us to buy one and go cruising in the Pacific to get away from it all, if you know what I mean.

Ten days later I received a letter from Helen which I thought would tell us the date when she’d be arriving. "Here is a letter from your Mum, telling us when she’ll be arriving!” I told my little girl as I came out of the post office but to my dismay the letter simply said that she’d “met a man to offer me happiness and contentment" and if I wanted to know more I should ring the following number which I did, back in the post office, as soon as the initial surprise had passed. If only I’d known then that I was about to go "from the frying pan into the fire."

I called the number and immediately recognized a distinctive voice. It was a guy who’d been around the area for years. I didn't know him very well although I’d admired his talent as a landscape artist. He was the guy who had driven Helen from Once Upon a Time a long time ago; the day after I’d met her.

I’d heard a lot of strange stories about him but I’d always taken them with a grain of salt. Gossip is a powerful negative force that I’d always tried to ignore but all of a sudden he was centre stage in our lives.

Helen got on the phone and talked for a few minutes. Her message was simple. She wanted me to send Tina down to her straight away. I was obviously hesitant after all of the preceding dramas and the fact that Tina was as happy as a lark right where she was so I told her I’d think about it and call her back in a week with an answer.

The male voice came back on the phone. ”You can do it the easy way or the hard way! “And then he hung up.

After a week I called back to give my considered reply which was a definite "No" but when I called the number a message informed me that the phone had been disconnected. Was that it? I felt a sense of foreboding.

A few days later I came home from work but Tina wasn’t there to greet me. The house-girl told me Tina’s mother had come and taken her, and that she was married.

I was unpleasantly surprised to say the least but I sat down and thought about the situation. Okay, she was married, that had to be an improvement, and she’d come to her senses. That was also a big relief. If she didn't want to be with me then that was her decision. I’d been on my own with my daughter for quite a while, about two years. Two difficult but precious years. It had never been my intention to be a single parent and the notion of being a free and easy single man again had its appeal.

I bought a bottle of champagne and went to Helen’s cousin’s place where I knew she’d be. Upon arrival the atmosphere was a bit tense so straight away I congratulated Helen on being married and toasted her happy future.

Everything seemed to be good although Helen had changed so much it was almost as though our daughter didn't really know her mother. That night we all went out together to the local social club and when I wanted to go home early Helen asked if she could come with me.

Back at the plantation she went more or less straight to bed so I grabbed a beer and watched TV. Ten minutes later Helen came back out of the bedroom.

We talked for a while but I suggested that we wait a few days and let things settle down before making any decisions.

For a few days I shared a bedroom, and a double bed, with Helen although I did nothing to jeopardize her new marriage even though I was as horny as hell, not having been near a woman for three months, and besides I was still hopelessly in love with her. How much of an idiot I was still astounds me. Why did I take the idea of her being married so seriously?

We hadn’t got down to a serious talk about the future because there seemed to be no rush, I liked her being there, and I felt safe because I had Tina’s passport tucked away.

And then a few days later, while I was working, they were on the plane and gone, despite the fact I still had Tina’s passport. How she got her back into Australia without a passport remains a mystery I have never followed up on.

Shortly thereafter, having removed four hundred logs from the sea I finally called it a day because I felt as though my luck had run out. Despite being all kitted-up, standing on the wharf ready to enter the water, and a functioning gang of helpers at the ready, I suddenly had a strong feeling that something had changed; so I shed my gear and drove to the boss’s office to tell him I’d quit “because my luck has run out”. He was surprised and concerned about finding a replacement but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

While still doing the diving job my old boss had called and asked me to take a group of people to the highlands to climb Mt Wilhelm just before Christmas and I’d said I would if she couldn't find anyone else to do it.

I saw it as a good way back into adventure-tourism but I didn’t know at that stage how long the salvage job would last. She hadn't called back so I assumed she needed me because she couldn't find anyone else who wanted to spend Christmas in the bush, so I decided to catch a barge across to the mainland and go up to the highlands to lead the group. It was still a few weeks until Christmas so I decided on some adventure beforehand.

I obviously should have called her first because the trip had been called off for some reason and she hadn’t called me to tell me so but it is hard to imagine how primitive communications were back then.

My decided destination was the southern coast of New Britain. It has no roads but many off-shore islands and they were the main reasons why the area had a strong appeal for me.

I caught a twin-engine Islander across to Kandrian to see some of the sailing canoes which were still the usual mode of transport within the clusters of small islands.

The little plane climbed bravely in heavy rain and flew by instruments for thirty minutes in zero visibility before the sky finally cleared to bright sunshine as we descended within view of the sparkling sea along a very beautiful coastline which we followed back to Kandrian. Below us were many lovely lagoons and hut-clustered inlets with the green and gold reef showing through clear water.

The grass strip gave a smooth, almost silent landing after the noisy buffeting of the wind.

Once my feet hit the ground I set them in the direction of the harbor to see if I could find a boat sailing soon for the group of islands about fifty kilometres west, which were the focus of my trip because they still sailed traditional canoes.

Fortunately, the Department of Primary Industry staff were preparing to leave for the remote islands to distribute hybrid cocoa seedlings and discuss bait-fish royalties

The M.V. Didi was loaded and ready for the sea with ten thousand tiny fish huddled in her shadow. She was a pleasant little boat, about twenty two feet in length, "solid" plywood of an unknown vintage and a roof running the full length for protection from the burning sun. The anchor was a woodworking vice which obviously should have been in a classroom or workshop elsewhere.

Nonetheless, we cast off only an hour behind schedule, chugged out through the line of upthrust islands which helped to form the harbor, and pointed little Didi across the shining sea towards the islands which were still below the horizon.

The brand new Yanmar diesel generated far more noise than indicated by its modest size so I chuckled to myself at the steady four knots we were making until Gabrielle, one of the crew, pushed back his cap and told me how slow she’d been before the new motor was installed.

Oh well! Melanesian time!

It was a long hot afternoon with the sun finally setting behind distant cumuli which towered over the idyllic cluster of rain-forested and palm-fringed islands, I had my first glimpse of the sailing canoes I’d come to see. Three family groups were gently cruising across the smooth water to a nearby island. Such a relaxed way to travel I’d never seen before. The small gaff-rigged sails moved them slowly across a mirror which reflected the passing of yet another beautiful day.

That night I slept on the concrete wharf of an abandoned plantation where we’d tied up, and awoke in the early hours to unload the hundred or more cocoa trees which the DPI was delivering there. As soon as possible I arranged to go sailing on one of the outrigger canoes pulled up on the beach. The village stretched away into a picture postcard of paradise.

We soon skimmed smoothly across the bay to Paligmete Island which is set aside for the exclusive use of pigs, although it looked more like something you’d expect to see wearing a five star hotel.

As we poled our way windward along the shore for the return reach, the wind was increased by an approaching storm. The helms boy was hesitant but I urged him on, unaware of the frailty of the particular rig the canoe carried. Half-way across the bay the wind became gusty and increasingly strong until the narrow outrigger began to lift from the water and we all ended up in the water swimming the disabled craft to shore, laughing together in the warm green water. Shining black eyes flashing in brown faces showing rows of perfect white teeth.

When I returned to the wharf a meeting was in progress. Fleets of Japanese tuna boats fish Nuigini waters and they require large amounts of small bait-fish which they spray out through nozzles to send the tuna into a feeding frenzy.

The removal of the dense schools of bait fish from coastal waters has had a devastating effect on the catch by traditional methods and so the people most obviously affected by the netting are paid some compensation which enables them to purchase their own fish cooked, canned, and exported from Japan.

One of the councillors named Bernard invited me to stay with his family on Pililo Island. His wife Felicitous was away gathering food from their gardens which they cultivate on the mainland and soon returned with a large palm-frond basket full of taro, bananas and kumu. She looked to be no more than thirty five years old, had a delightfully open face covered by traditional tattooing, and an abundance of beads around her slender neck. She wore a purple blouse with a few holes in it, a black lap-lap around her waist, and woven grass bands on her strong brown arms.

We set off to paddle to the nearest island against a slight north-west swell which was confusing the sea as we rounded a rocky headland so we took a little water over the starboard gunwale.

Bernard and Felicitous were a real team so with little help from my paddling we were soon sliding the canoe onto the beach outside their humble dwelling set amongst a cluster of trees and other thatched houses with hand-adzed plank walls.

Bernard showed me around the village and introduced me to their seven children. The eldest about fifteen.

In the middle of the village was a small shrine set on stumps and roofed with corrugated iron that housed a plaster image of the Virgin Mary hung about with strings of yellow flowers and frangipanis.

Two ocean going "mons", each about fifteen meters in length were pulled up on the beach nearby so I stopped for a chat with the men who’d built them to find out what kind of timber they’d used and how long it had taken to shape them from the logs. Both hardwoods and softwoods are used and discarded as soon as they crack or become water-logged. On small islands where trees are scarce, drifting logs are watched for by spotters positioned in trees, towers, or high ground.

Other smaller sailing and paddling canoes lined the shore, children climbed on them and dived from them into the warm shallows.

Dinner was taro and octopus cooked in coconut cream and of course it was delicious, all fresh and organic. Other foods eaten include sweet potato, tapioca, and ibica, all kinds of fish, turtle, crayfish, and coconuts at various stages of maturity, clamshell, dugong, flying fox and pigeon.

I slept the night upstairs in the four roomed house which had the date of the latest DDT fumigation chalked on the wall. Mosquitoes still feasted on my soft flesh but nonetheless I awoke refreshed to brilliant sunshine. The village was being swept from one end to the other by the ladies with coconut frond brooms. I felt as though I could easily stay for a couple of days but also knew that there was a boat leaving Kimbe, on the other side of the island, within a week and I thought it was meant to have me aboard.

There was a severe shortage of outboard fuel so I took advantage of a canoe which came by midmorning travelling in the right direction along the coast. It was at least fifteen meters in length and almost two meters broad, cut from a single log, with a forty horsepower motor attached.

It took two hours to reach Murien village, no-one spoke much. I chipped in for fuel.

We shared a couple of pineapples and drank some coconuts. The sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky so the occasional spray from the planing hull was refreshing as the canoe moved across the long low swells much like the flying fish that were frightened by our fifty foot fish.

The villages facing the open sea were fitted into the small coves eroded out of the uplifted limestone cliffs and the length of each beach determined the size and population of the village. We washed ourselves in a pool of clear water which collected from a spring trickling out of the limestone wall, and then wandered up through the empty village to where, after climbing a tall bamboo ladder we came to a school with a grass playing field.

It was graduation day for the schools senior pupils, and some of them were quite old. They performed traditional dances and pantomimes, and everybody feasted on fish and vegetables. Trade goods had come with the missionaries so when the children touched their foreheads they recited "Tru-kai", and then rice brand "Sun-long" and finally "tinned fish" as a modern variation on the holy trinity.

Sitting quietly in the shade of a coconut palm I watched the festivities, feeling relaxed and very happy for these fortunate people who can still live a simple and good natured life amongst friends they have known since birth. I dozed and prepared for the six hour walk to the next village, Sara.

An albino man named Edward came and sat with his face about fifteen centimetres from mine and laughed and smoked and joked as though we were kindred spirits. It must be hard being a lily-white brown man. It's hard enough being a brown white man.

I asked Edward directions, shared some sugar cane, gave him a box of matches, and set off through scattered food gardens and coconut planted regrowth along the usual twenty centimetre wide path lined with all kinds of palms, flowering bushes and greenery stretching to the sky, barefoot toward Sara through patches of mud. In the forest there were plenty of brightly coloured butterflies flapping about and although birds are not often seen anywhere near villages due to the custom of firing slingshots at anything that moves, those I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of were all previously unknown to me and generally of stunning appearance.

After a few hours of pleasant wandering in the silence and almost total stillness amongst the forest’s endless variety of flowers and trees I came to a large salty lagoon which merged with the sea through a narrow rocky neck. An old canoe was moored close to the bank for use by people walking the path so after looking around for signs of crocodiles I swam out to it, untied the line, slid in over the stern and began paddling for the small village I could see on the northern side of the lagoon.

From there the trail wound around and over some small hills and limestone outcroppings. Many land crabs scurried about on the leafy forest floor which seemed a bit unusual but I walked on until I came to the edge of a large newly cleared food garden where some older ladies were working. They wore only arse-grass and I thought the scene worth a photo if I could get a little closer without disturbing them but all that I achieved was to surprise a couple of dogs which seemed not only astounded by my appearance and odour but ashamed of themselves for not attacking me sooner.

They leapt and barked at my tucked-in form until one of the kids ran over yelling and waving a yam stake to beat them off. I’ve never liked the idea of being bitten by dogs, especially where they generally survive by scavenging offal and excrement, although it is also true that many village dogs are almost exclusively vegetarian and well able to gnaw coconut out of the shell.

The old ladies were planting corn and sweet potato ready for the monsoon to sprout them and swell them out. A stout fence made from cut saplings surrounded the half-acre clearing to keep out wild pigs from the taro and tapioca.

I thanked the kids, who were still looking at me curiously, waved a farewell and walked on.

Back in the fragrant safeness of the forest a pied pheasant coucal whooped from within the branches of a huge flowering tree which had spilled a carpet of colour.

Late in the afternoon I felt that by then I should have been close to Sara village so I chose a track heading toward the coast and soon came out on top of a small cliff above the beach where I could overlook the everyday events of a picturesque village which like organized human jetsam was scattered along above the high water mark of a coronas beach, and sure enough it was Sara.

After a warm welcome from a crowd of kids I was shown to the men’s house to lie down for a rest after the usual preliminary chat about where I’d walked from and where I intended going. A lot of men and boys gathered in the men’s house where all single or widowed males live and learn tribal customs. After I’d told them a few stories the one fellow who could speak English well told me that it was not so long ago that I would have been in danger walking alone in the forest.

He interpreted for a wild-looking old man who gave a vivid account of their first sighting of a “white man”, using his hands, his eyes and an indefinite amount of seemingly unrelated monosyllables. It ended in a big contagious grin.

"We saw him coming along the beach. We’d never seen anything like him and all agreed that we should find out how he tasted!"

According to the tale the fellow was eaten completely, including his boots (taken with a grain of salt), which they thought were part of him. I looked around the packed building to find some laughter to break the silence, "Bel bilong yupela e cry lik-lik?” I asked with a grin.

To most people cannibalism is a shocking practice but many times during my travels in Nuigini I have discussed the subject with various tribesmen who’ve unashamedly told me that tradition dictated the killing of men, women or children from a rival clan as their duty and it quite literally earned them the right to their share of the earth’s bounty. The body was eaten for other than spiritual reasons concerning transfer of strengths etc. Many fruits and vegetables such as papaya and sweet potato which we take for granted are historically new arrivals to Nuigini, as are pigs, and amongst hunting and gathering groups the competition for territory had always been a matter of survival, especially in mountainous areas.

A schoolkid picked up my copy of Shogun I’d taken out of my bag and he began to read it aloud. The image of that young man reading in the windowless bio-degradable building with paddles and masks stored above in the low rafters of the lashed and thatched roof definitely highlighted the essential simplicity and vulnerability of Melanesian culture.

After a meal of sweet potato and taro which had been delivered to the men’s house in an enamel dish big enough to wash a baby in we sat around smoking, talking and chewing betel nut. From the early morning to the last thing at night there’s always someone chewing betel nut, even when you think they are asleep. It is a disgusting and addictive habit which causes mouth cancer but is such an integral part of Nuigini social life that it will resist every effort by government to stop it. "Our beer!” I’m told.

During the night I was quietly eaten by mosquitoes and slept badly. What passes for a bed is constructed by laying about a dozen thin sticks across a frame of three sets of uprights with cross sticks bound with bark. That's it! Getting horizontal is more like levitation than anything else because the combined strength of the sticks surely couldn’t be enough to support a human body.

By first light I was ready to keep walking having decided during the night to cross the island on foot to see the "Kombe" people of the north coast on the way back. It left me no time to spend relaxing in the villages even though the Bishop of Rabaul was due in Sara that morning on a once-in-a-decade visit to confirm the young people who were Christians.

I finally decided it was time to be making tracks. I’d been giving out tinned fish, rice and batteries whenever the time seemed right but with the long trek ahead of me I distributed the last of the canned food and took a few photos.

The people live a life of subsistence affluence and have never needed to struggle too much to survive. Life seemed so wonderfully straightforward. If it is edible, grow it or catch it and eat it; and then wait until you are hungry again.

It was low tide so the sun reflected off the exposed reef and bleached coronas "sand". One old guy was eating a cockatoo’s head for breakfast so I asked him how he’d caught it. He shrugged before telling that after he’d spotted the bird sitting on a branch he’d climbed the nearest large tree and thrown a knife through it. Simple!

It’s almost beyond their comprehension when you aren't familiar with their customs or if you can't prepare a drinking coconut with three sharp strokes of a bush knife.

Always there were people softly staring. I’d seen a lot of their faces in masks and carvings. They hadn't seen a lot of white-skins and were curious to watch how I behaved. Even when I took a pee they’d stand around watching. Always watching but just out of curiosity. Drinking my last kulau before leaving I looked up to see one almond eye edging around a seasoned sapling supporting the raised dwelling. Someone chopped firewood and two piglets squabbled over a muddy piece of corn cob.

Shells are employed here as scraping tools by the old people who can no longer chew the "strong" kind of betel nut they prefer. As the name suggests the nut is the seed of a palm and as it gets older and woodier the narcotic effect becomes more pronounced. I’d chewed some strong stuff in the past but for the first time ever I saw that some people even chewed the nuts when they had shoots and roots inches in length and were as hard as wood.

They taught me the "proper" way to eat taro; in the order of taro/scraped coconut/taro/scraped coconut etc. They must have all eaten taro and scraped coconut every day of their lives but still enjoyed it. I could tell.

One of the things to get used to when travelling in Nuigini is that people stare unashamedly, ask any question without hesitation, are always generous, yet have no qualms about making you the butt of their jokes; if it so happens. There just isn't the same face-saving protocol as elsewhere. It is clean, honest, and clumsy but simple because everyone knows where they stand and no-one is immune. If you’re angry then you are wrong.

I decided that the time had finally come for me to go. I said goodbye to the people near me and strolled past some small boys rolling about naked in the sand as I went on up the steep track to where it joined the main pathway that led to the Pulie River where obsidian tools eleven thousand years old had been found.

The track entered the forest and soon there were very few gardens although the ones I saw were very large, well set out, and surrounded by stout fences. Before long the sky opened and rain fell heavily. I removed my clothes, stashed them in a plastic bag inside a bilum, and walked naked at a steady pace through water about ten centimetres deep. The path was on a slight positive gradient so soon the water ran past my feet carrying mud and small pebbles. It was still hot though and every leaf shone a brilliant green. It was very refreshingly beautiful!

Many butterflies grazed the luxuriant forest, including the majestic bird wing, the largest in the world. They are so-named because of their particularly elongated wings and strong flying style. The caterpillars feed on a poisonous vine so they remain toxic to predators all their lives but because of habitat loss they aren’t often seen outside virgin forest. For that reason they sell for up to ten thousand dollars each on the global butterfly black market.

I arrived in Ipuk village late in the day, much to the surprise of the dozen inhabitants who were ignoring the downpour and happy to gather for a nice group photo in the rain before I moved on to Nuwalu; an hour up the track.

That night I slept poorly in an empty hut without windows or vents for smoke to escape even though it was necessary to keep a small fire glowing each side of the bed to keep the mosquitoes down to a tolerable level. I was fairly weary so I fell into a deep sleep without waking each hour to stir the fire. My dreams were vivid and varied and during the night I awoke to find myself standing in pitch blackness without a clue to where I was.

I stood there thinking. The only clue was the burnt smell and a chink of moonlight piercing the darkness where the thatch was damaged, and then I remembered, "Sara, Ipuk, Gerring-Gerring!" so I bent at the waist while feeling around in the dark for the nearest batch of sticks to carefully lie myself back down on. It was spooky.

I’d covered myself with my lap-lap but the mossies had attacked in full force when the fires had gone out during the early hours so I woke in the morning with so many bites on my face I could hardly see.

I rose early, obviously, while mist still mingled with the smoke which seeped out of the dew-damp thatch. Roosters had been competing since four and pigs squealed and grunted, fiddling about in the swept-up refuse with their pink whiskered snouts. A young woman named Catarina held her first born child, its head still pointed just like her amazing brown breasts with jet black nipples. Curious designs were tattooed onto her face and arms.

One of the ladies offered me a couple of pieces of cold taro wrapped in banana leaf. They looked about as appetizing as a slice of wet toast on a kitchen sink, but I thanked her and stashed them in my bilum. After walking continuously for eight hours I was more than glad to eat them.

The schedule for crossing the island went around in my head. I was still uncertain but as long as I reached Gerring-Gerring that night, Lamogai the following day and then reached the Aria River in time to find a suitable "mon" to get me back to Garu within two days it would be all right.

I’d been lucky not to waste too much time walking too far on the main track to the headwaters of the Pulie River. I’d met some locals at just the right time. Pidgin is very much a second or third language for real bush people so sometimes it’s easy for misunderstandings to occur when both parties are being too polite to admit to limited comprehension. Even the pronunciation of something as unmistakable as Gerring-Gerring had caused me problems.

I’d point along the path and ask “Gerring-Gerring? Gerring-Gerring?...” each time trying a slightly different pronunciation, inflexion, or facial expression but the gaggle of bush-people almost naked, already surprised to have come face to face with an outsider, would look at me with uniformly dumbfounded expressions until the penny would finally drop and they'd repeat the name back to me in a way which was indiscernibly different. And then we’d all start laughing and every hand was pointing in the same northerly direction. But how can something as distinctive as the name “Gerring-Gerring” go unrecognised? Life is fascinating.

My path soon turned away from the well maintained three hundred millimetre "highway". Being used far less the smaller track was overgrown in many places.

The rain was fairly constant so I stripped the wet lap-lap from my legs, rolled it up, and stashed it in the bilum outside the plastic garbage bag keeping my clothes dry. It felt so primeval walking naked in the virgin forest slopping along barefoot with mud and multi-coloured leaves squelching up between my toes and rain pouring down, dripping from my saturated forelock.

Several hours later, at about the same time as the wild-man fantasy was wearing thin, I started seeing indications that people were around so I put the lap-lap back on. And then just on dark I smelled smoke, and sure enough walked into a little village I just knew was Gerring-Gerring. Yay!

As usual the people were amazed to see me and soon gathered around to check me out. One by one they all shook my hands and showed me to the men's house. I was glad to sit down out of the rain and listen to a talkative old guy tell me something I really didn't understand. We had a good laugh. They were all smoking bush tobacco so I got out my little stash and rolled one up. They all smoked and kept smoking but for me, I was exhausted so I put on my dry clothes and curled up on a 'bed' of sticks.

By four in the morning I’d already been awake for an hour and it wasn't raining so as soon as I could see enough I put my clothes back in the plastic bag and hit the track. Not far from the village the path began to climb steeply and then continued following a narrow spur up and down with the sky getting lighter and the promise of sunshine not a ridiculous dream. The pink clay was extremely slippery, especially going down steep slopes where razor sharp pieces of limestone projecting from the clay meant that a fall would be disastrous. I was walking without shoes and needed to be careful of my feet so the pace was relatively slow.

Many kokomos live in this type of forest and it was always a pleasure to hear them beating their mighty wings amongst the branches of the towering buttressed trees or from the occasional high point see them flying above the canopy in their distinctive beak-down attitude, usually in pairs.

Following the Wasum River upstream meant many slimy single log bridges to cross. They required a great deal of concentrated effort to negotiate so sometimes I’d find myself standing motionless for perhaps five or ten seconds preparing for the next step forward, resisting the temptation to lunge at the far bank. I’d not seen anyone or sign of habitation for several hours.

There was one small beautifully built hut along the way so I went inside to rest from the constant drenching rain. Inside was the usual spartan layout I’d seen so many times before, but there were also pig hunter’s nets and some black wooden dishes about one meter in length carved with bird and fish motifs. They were from Siassi Island, participants in the ancient trading network which transferred obsidian, pots, ochre, weapons, drums, mats, shells, canoes, dog’s teeth, tubers, sago, pigs, and even brides between the islands, the north coast, and into the mountains.

Along the ridge pole were tied a couple of hundred pig's mandibles, complete with teeth and tusks which must have taken many years to collect. I ate some delicious taro and was keen to be on my way again, not knowing just how long it would take to reach the village where I intended to sleep that night.

I’d heard the name "Lamagai" several times as I walked ever closer to it, but as with all places, one could never know what to expect, especially when there was hardly ever a chance to look ahead from a mountain or across a plain.

There’d been mention of a couple of men; David and John. I thought it most likely they were geologists mapping and sampling in the mountains and living in a bush camp. When I learned that one of them spoke the local language I began to think that I may spend the evening in the company of anthropologists who could pass on some interesting information concerning the people amongst whom I was wandering. But no. Wrong on both counts.

As I entered the village of Lamogai in pouring rain after six hours alone in the rainforest there before me was a large non-native structure enclosed by fly-wire.

I walked up to the veranda and looked in through the screen door at a blonde woman in her mid-thirties typing into a computer terminal. I’d arrived at the New Tribes Mission Centre where four very dedicated and single minded evangelists were translating the New Testament for the purpose of saving isolated souls.

The night before I’d dried my clothes over a very smoky fire, and I smelt like it, so a shower and hot dinner of chili beans were more than welcome. We played scrabble after dinner and I asked the people about their work.

They were just one of twenty seven New Tribes Missions in Nuigini, along with a couple of thousand outposts of the other dozens of varieties of missionaries. They planned on being busy for another ten years at least, teaching the people to read and write their language after it had been fully documented and a translation of the bible completed.

I asked about the track down to the Aria River where I was headed the next day. They said that it was about six hours to walk and that some places were very steep and slippery.

All materials for the house, including flush toilets and water tanks, had been carried up from the river by carriers employed from the ranks of the village people. Thank god for cheap labour!

I slept like a log and woke very early to a silent Sunday morning house. While washing my face I decided to get on my way immediately because I was uncertain about getting the necessary canoe rides along the coast from the mouth of the Aria river, and besides that, the largest toe-nail on my left foot had been torn and lifted by some sharp limestone during a slide the previous day and had begun to throb alarmingly. On leaving the bathroom I discovered that the entire family was up and about, praying and studying the bible like there was no tomorrow so after breakfast I headed generally downhill for what I’d planned to be my last day of walking. My toe was throbbing continually and some kind of liquid was oozing out from under the nail, mixing with the mud.

The track passed through impressive food gardens planted out with yams, tapioca, corn and sweet potato runners which climbed over the axed tree stumps. The path crossed and re-crossed many streams during this section. At first there were the typical high set single log bridges just waiting to break my ankle but further on the stream beds were smooth white limestone with a slippery track cutting down either side of the stream. Limestone clay is the slipperiest of all.

After another three hours I came to Buluwatne, a singularly uninspiring place. I’d passed most of its population on the track heading up to Lamagai for a sing-sing, carrying four pigs on green poles, and just as many guitars. The village was almost empty except for some feeble old people and very young children.

Most of the kids suffered from grille, the tinea-style skin disease which affects about five percent of villagers throughout Nuigini. It looks horrible but doesn't seem to bother those that live with it. Even on small babies where it can be seen just beginning the parents never seem to be concerned to do anything about ridding their infants of the parasite which burrows around just under the top layers of skin leaving a pattern like the surface of a brain until the entire body is covered in flaking skin.

I paid a young girl to climb a coconut palm for me to get some kulai to drink. She was very agile and I gratefully consumed the refreshing liquid before sharing the meat and continuing on my way. They told me that it was still a long way to walk.

Leaving Buluwatne the path crossed a limestone arch with a rushing stream passing beneath it. I climbed down into the cave beneath the arch to have a look but slipped and almost fell heavily into the shallow water so I decided it would be wiser for me to just keep moving while I was able to do so. My toe had an up-tempo throb and the base of the nail glowed red.

After another three hour stint through heavily timbered hills where the path followed a gentle winding up and down tunnel carpeted with bright hued leaves and scattered pods and fruits, the forest opened up and through jagged bread-fruit leaves I could see the Aria River about two kilometres distant coming from the south west.

It was a welcome sight.

The track dropped over the side of the mountain in a perilously slippery section which had eroded to become a stream-bed in many places. It was necessary to carefully cross the stone-scoured gullies but after a further hour at a slow pace I reached level ground and followed the track along the bank of a slow and murky tributary which looked like crocodile soup. Because the river rose and fell according to the weather, the plants, bushes and toppled trees on its banks were all brushed down and burdened with flood debris.

I came to an uncompleted canoe which had plenty of signs of activity around it but without anything that looked like a track beyond. I sat on the gunwale and peered across at the far bank of the small river looking for the continuation of the path but there was nothing. I was tired. Determined to keep moving forward, but the water was deep, very murky, and full of snags.

At Buluwatne they’d said to sing out loudly when I reached the river. I knew this wasn't "the" river but yelled loudly a few times and waited for the reply which would never come. In mild desperation, as thunder continued to roll across the hills and the dark sky twisted in torment above me, with my toe beating time, I almost gave in to the impulse to swim across the narrow waterway as quickly as possible but I determined not to and continued walking downstream for another kilometre until there was a large tree which had fallen to provide a bridge on which I carefully crossed.

On the other bank was a confusion of tracks amongst some overgrown gardens, I really didn't know which one to follow so headed generally north-west without letting the sight of ungathered coconuts faze me. Within ten minutes I’d emerged onto the eastern bank of the muddy, rain-swollen Aria.

Kwako village could be seen on the inside of a sweeping curve of the river; I yelled and whistled until a small boy came down the far bank to see what I was. He untied one of the canoes moored alongside the steep bank and pushed off towards me. The canoes had outriggers attached and gave me the impression that these people were fairly recent immigrants from the coast. There are quite a few place names beginning with "Bulu" so maybe their inhabitants were all from an island which sank during a volcanic eruption a long time ago.

Dead leaves spun in the passing whirlpools and I felt a sense of relief to have completed the walking section of the short journey.

I rested and watched the beautiful butterflies flitter about amongst stands of bamboo and ragged cassia while bird-calls exploded from the forest up and downstream. The sounds of crashing thunder continued as the child maneuvered his canoe against the current to the bank.

A light misty rain began to fall but within a few minutes of paddling we were on the far side and walking into a large but almost deserted village where I rested my foot on a bed in the spirit house. People gathered around outside to find out who I was and where I’d come from. One woman was in mourning so she was painted with charcoal from head to foot, except for her top lip. Very few of them had ever crossed the island and were surprised by the list of villages I recited.

After buying a kulai from a young man about ten years old who’d just climbed the tallest coconut palm I’d ever seen, set within an elegant betel nut grove. I began to discuss the possibility and price of a canoe ride downstream. The mouth of the river was still twenty kilometres distant.

All of the men and most of the women were in the forest catching pigs so the only available person was a young women with her first born child of eight months.

Moving slowly, smoothly, silently down the river was a pleasant change from slipping and sliding along a narrow jungle path. The grey surface reflected clouds, towering forest giants, slender palms, and the soft cooing of wompoo pigeons. The chatter of the local language complemented the rhythmic bumping of paddles against the drum-like hollowed hulls. They shifted water as the wind stirred the tree tops far above.

We soon arrived at Bugai village and made inquiries concerning a large old mon tied up at the landing. "Yes", it would be leaving for Garu the following morning with a load of copra. I was welcome to stay the night.

The village had a very muddy centre with many pet pigs rooting about in it. As with the previous village there weren't many young men present because they were all out hunting.

To catch pigs they string out long nets which are made from fibrous inner bark rolled on the thigh into tough rope. The net is hung from tree to tree around the base of a hill where they know pigs like to slumber during the heat of the day. The women approach from the far side making enough noise to drive the startled pigs down the hill into the net where they are pounced on by the person fortunate enough to be closest. While avoiding the dangerous tusks, the front legs of the struggling animal must be held under it, while its rear legs are bound by an accomplice.

When hunting cassowaries small boys are placed behind bushes a few meters short of the net so as the big birds go by the children leap up to frighten them so their lowered heads go straight through the net and become entangled. With pigs it’s just the sheer momentum.

It was four days before Christmas so they were preparing a feast.

I lay down quietly in the Haus Tambaran until just on dusk plenty of whooping and singing roused me. A line of about twenty men and ten women appeared from the edge of the forest with four pigs tied onto freshly cut poles. The boys were particularly pleased with themselves and continued to play at spearing and generally harassing the immobilized pigs which were left hanging upside down from the poles as the men sat, chewed betel nut and smoked while sharing stories of the successful hunt. One of the pigs was a huge old tusker with a broken snare wire knotted tightly on each of its swollen right legs from which it had previously evaded capture. I looked into its fearful, suspicion-laden eye and we agreed that this time he’d finally met his end

Very soon the young guys were given the nod and enthusiastically began spearing the pigs through their hearts with sharpened pieces of hardwood bound to bamboo shafts.

The pigs writhed and squealed as their blood pumped out onto the muddy ground. Everyone was hyped-up so as soon as some small fires were lit and fresh banana leaves laid out, the carcasses were rolled in the fire to singe the stiff black bristles. Next the beheadings were performed with an axe, and then the intestines removed and washed.

The rest of the carcass was quickly dismembered by enthusiastic young men with not very sharp bush knives. One fellow, a bit overcome by the blood lust, almost cut off one of his toes and looked very embarrassed by the wound and the pain it was causing him. Lime and pig bristles were applied to help congeal the blood.

Everyone in this part of the world carries a knife or axe but no-one ever cuts themselves, especially when they’re butchering a pig!

I sat around watching the excitement knowing that within the hour I’d be presented with a wobbly slab of warm meat which I’d have to eat with obvious pleasure. The mud and the blood and the pig-shit or yellowed old teeth in severed heads weren't allowed to affect my appetite.

After dinner I kindled a small smoky fire beside my bed and lay down with the pain reverberating in my toe. In the dark, flames from the many small fires shifted shadows in the high pitched roof hung with nets and masks and pigs mandibles. Where was sleep amongst the excited babble and commotion?

About four I was wide awake after catching short snatches of sleep which only lasted until the fire died out enough for the mossies to get back at me so I sat up and smoked with some of the old guys. Them carrying on a whispered conversation in what I found difficult to believe was a language.

At first light the old guys took me to an enclosure behind the Haus Tamburan where we could not be seen by the rest of the village and dressed themselves in the tall pointed masks and wrapped themselves in the voluminous grass skirt which tied around their necks. I recognized the awesome duk-duk. The assassin of the secret society. The Enforcers.

I strolled down to the river to find out what was holding us up and was really disturbed to see that the mon had already gone! It would be waiting further downstream I was told but if I’d known it was leaving I doubt that I would’ve let it out of my sight. My big toe was like a sore thumb. Throbbing constantly. Some of the nasty tropical ulcers I noticed reminded me of how quickly infection takes hold.

After seemingly interminable procrastination we paddled downstream for a couple of hours to a place called Okmadoo.

The canoe leaked so it had to be bailed continually with a coconut shell but as we rounded yet another bend in the river there against the bank was the old mon with outrigger and forty horsepower outboard being loaded with hessian sacks stuffed with copra.

This was it I thought; I’d make the schedule and get back in time to catch my boat ride. I had a group to meet in Simbu province and I didn't want to let my old boss down.

My relief was short lived though, one thing after another prevented us from leaving and finally I just accepted the timelessness of the culture and settled down to some pork, potato and a cup of sweet tea. The poison was in my blood. My head was pounding.

After lunch, old John, a former policeman and the headman of the clan, produced for me one aspro. I gratefully swallowed it and the gap in the pain allowed me to fall asleep for about an hour and thereby break through the fever which had gripped my body. When I awoke the bedding was soaked with sweat and I felt cold and dizzy but soon began to recover my strength and sense of humour.

An hour later the signal was given to go. We found our places amongst the bundles of sugar cane and string bags full of taros. The young men pushed away from the bank with long-handled paddles just as the sky opened and a torrential downpour scoured the surface of the slow brown river.

John talked about crocodiles and the time before when he worked in different parts of the country as a policeman. His Sepik wife and their little girl named Katie were with him and they huddled under a banana leaf so that it took longer for them to become drenched. We were within a few kilometres of the river mouth but pulled alongside a floating log, anchored to the steep muddy bank to form a pontoon, and climbed up into a village named Taliwage. To buy more fuel I thought.

I soon found out we were going to spend the night there so I moved my bilum indoors where I could read some more of Shogun and escape into a more sophisticated world. My foot was feeling a lot better but I didn't want to walk around much. I wished to avoid the constant staring and endless questions which required by then too much effort to translate. No-one spoke English, I’d come unprepared for the severity of the mosquitoes and my time was too limited. I kicked a few of the mangy mutts away with my good foot when the food was brought; and felt better.

The night passed peacefully, John slept soundly with his huge frame supported on about five sticks and as soon as the sky softened I began rousing the others from their sleep. We had a long way to travel that day and I intended to get there.

Soon enough we’d fully packed the canoe, ready to go, but to my intuitive consternation the load had increased from just five forty-kilo bags of copra, to nineteen, and the number of passengers had also increased to nineteen. You imagine a canoe carved from a single log with such a load about to head out onto the open sea and you will know why I felt concerned. There was a flimsy kind of outrigger but it was obvious the canoe had seen better days and needed repairs. But, being a strong swimmer I was willing to take the chance.

The river was perfectly calm and reflective in the soft early light. A faint mist hung in the rainforest’s top and many fruit bats, some with long tears in the membranes that are their wings, flew about still finding their roosts for the day. The deep flapping sounds bounced off the shiny water like applause for just being alive.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos screeched while bright red and green parrots spiked the morning’s peace with their piercing calls and hurried flight. Appearing above one side of the river before quickly disappearing beyond the other. The sun had broken through and it looked like we were in for a lovely day on the sea.

Along the banks of the river were new and old food gardens, coconuts planted for cash crops, and stands of bamboo; the grass with a hundred different purposes. Silver clouds hung in the sky already and over the ocean could be seen the massed cumuli so typical of the wet season which had only recently begun. Everybody smoked.

John told a story about one of the clan who’d been dragged into a cave in the bank by a big crocodile. Although shocked, bruised and scratched by the claws and tail of the croc he’d managed to escape through a tunnel which surfaced a short distance inland. Very lucky! As he spoke with his big old hands tremoring we rounded a bend in the river and felt an oceanic breeze. We had reached the river mouth but it was still necessary to avoid some huge trees which were snagged on a submerged outcrop of bedrock.

The motor-guy and accomplice had already started the motor and clunked it into gear ready for the transition to ocean.

A few boats were pulled up on the beach where a pretty village rested lightly on a high spit of sand. There were people standing there watching but no one waved or acknowledged the other’s presence in any way.

The river mouth had a shallow bar and although the swell wasn't heavy, waves were breaking, and soon we were taking water straight over the bow each time it dipped into a wave. Two small boys were head-down in the bilge bailing frantically with coconut shells.

The outboard had plenty of power to push the slender craft over the waves through to deeper water, but the general vibe was uncertainty and fear, which I thought premature considering it wasn't far to shore. But some people of Okmadoo are genetically afraid of sharks it seemed and many of them can’t even swim.

We turned north east to run three quarters to the weather at a steady five or six knots. The day was blue and white and hot but it wasn't long before the wind’s strength and swell’s size increased enough to cause the outrigger to bury as each swell wallowed the heavily laden craft. Rain began to fall and the wind gust. White horses leapt from every wave and we were shipping water regularly as the swell slowly increased in size. Bailing by the boys was continuous.

Without warning, about mid-morning, a timber brace on the outrigger snapped off, fell into the sea and disappeared in our wake. Everyone took notice and looked worried but John's wife was the only one to begin yelling to the helmsman to turn back or head for the shore which was only about a kilometre distant but fringed with un-crossable coral reefs. He ignored her and continued to direct the helm as best he could to relieve strain on the outrigger.

The wind and swell continued to build so I kept my eye on the coast planning what to do when the whole thing broke up. The four year old was the only person I’d have risked my life to save and it would probably be best to stay holding onto the hull, if it didn't sink, to be delivered to the shore by the movement of the sea.

Another canoe had been lost recently doing the same trip but that had been before the change of season so the canoe would’ve been blown across open ocean until everyone died of thirst. There aren’t rescue operations in this part of the world.

It must have been obvious to John, the elder of the clan, and naturally the captain of the vessel, that things were going to get worse before they’d get any better so he gave instructions to find a gap in the reef so we could do some running repairs in sheltered shallow water.

The village chosen was Tarawa because clan members had intermarried there so it was guaranteed friendly and under obligation to supply the rope required to strengthen the old tub.

We went ashore and waited in the shade with about a hundred curious people gathered around. Some of the young women wore traditional designs tattooed on their faces and lots of discs and beads and teeth strung about their necks and arms.

By late morning the job had been completed. It was already midday and we had a further sixty kilometres of open sea to cover before dark. The volcano that marked our destination loomed large on the horizon.

After reboarding the canoe it was decided that we needed more fuel so a collection began and another hour passed while the fuel was fetched and transferred from one container to another. My patience was drawn tight but the sun was out and the surroundings were so vivid and dynamic that it was almost impossible to be annoyed.

Finally, the repaired canoe was refuelled and once again we were beyond the fringing reef wallowing about in a short sharp sea that caused continual stress and strain on the lashings. The people sat quietly with lap-laps pulled over their heads until the storm had passed and relief was offered by a few low-lying islands that blocked the swell for a couple of hours, increasing our speed. Along the shore were some lively villages with sailing canoes pulled up on the beach.

The sun burned into us, I wore a hat and pulled a lap-lap over my shoulders but many of the other passengers lay out in the full sun until dusk; they are tough people who don't fidget or complain.

As the sun sank behind the mountains we began to distinguish Garu. It isn't a town or village but a saw-mill, road connection and loading point for logs destined for Korea and Japan. Stacked along the beach were thousands of hardwood logs waiting to be taken to Asian factories for peeling into plywood for formwork.

Large ships filled their holds and stacked them well above deck. Soon the virgin forest I’d walked through would be destroyed yet I’d been helping to build a wharf. When I’d returned from the first trip clean-shaven, wearing a new shirt and watch I’d been accused of “selling out” and maybe I had but the money I’d earned would come in handy very soon.

Some of the richest rainforest was being plundered right before my eyes.

Just on dark we finally slid up onto the black beach at Garu. A timber truck was leaving to cross the mountains and I managed to jump on for a ride around Big Mt Worri where the road fords streams too hot to swim in. I could walk the last few kilometres back to hot showers and videos. Back in time to catch the barge to Lae.

I didn’t know the trip to the mountain had been cancelled because communications was so much more difficult then. So, completely unnecessarily, as it turned out, I boarded the Stella Maris for the voyage to Lae.

She was a steel inter-island barge about forty metres in length; used for transporting everything and anything around the islands. It was flat-bottomed for getting into shallow bays. It had a drop-down ramp in the bow for loading vehicles and containers from the beach. 

I couldn't get a cabin so I bought deck space and tried to make a place for myself amongst the masses of packed-in Chimbu plantation workers. Chimbus are tough little mountain people, fearful of the ocean at the best of times.

Because it was almost Xmas the boat was hopelessly overloaded with families going home to the highlands for Christmas. The entire country has been religiously colonised by fifty seven varieties of missionaries.

I staked out just enough room on the rear deck by putting down something to sleep on but when I returned from a look around there were already three snotty nosed kids asleep on it. Ho hum.

As soon as we were on the sea I knew it was going to be a rough trip because the wind was blowing hard from the south. Rounding the peninsula pointed the ship directly into the weather so the flat nose bashed the oncoming swells, one after another, after another, after another. The entire craft shook and sent a booming noise echoing through the hold where most of the people were huddled with their pigs, kids, dogs and chickens. It was an awesome noise. The reverberating bass thud from the bow beneath the Highlander’s high-pitched chanting and howling as we beat into an increasingly heavy sea. The kind of inimitable stuff that makes uncomfortable travel worthwhile.

By nightfall rain was pouring down and the sea had risen considerably, after each 'boom' huge walls of spray were being blown back onto the expansive rubberized tarpaulin stretched across the hold from where the mournful chanting of hundreds of frightened Chimbus was still pouring out, changing pitch in response to the ocean’s will.

There was no sleeping that night so I sat on the upper deck leaning back against a steel bulkhead smoking and talking with a bunch of locals. By early morning we were in the depths of the weather. Steep, often foaming, swells were running down the gunwales and along both rails were lines of seasick men, women and children so the decks were awash with watered-down vomit. 

It was revolting, and even started to make me feel sick, so I borrowed a knife to pick the lock on a storage room. Inside were stacks of rice sacks and biscuit boxes just right for me to make a bed and finish reading "Shogun". 

I didn't come back out, except to pee over the side, until we arrived twelve hours behind schedule, and when I saw the condition of the people and the boat I was glad I hadn't stayed on deck. A few years later the ship that replaced the barge, Rabaul Princess, went down suddenly in the middle of the night, drowning hundreds.

The trip into the highlands was the usual cramped ride in a mini bus, although to the first time traveller the trip up the Markham valley would be exciting. A couple of guys on the side of the road were cutting up a cow which had been hit by a truck. That meat would be in Goroka market in no time.

All consumer goods are delivered to the highland towns by semi-trailer and there’d been a real problem of loads being surreptitiously ‘unloaded’ as the trucks ground their way up the continual steep grades so every truck was provided with a person riding 'shotgun' to shoot any wannabe hijackers.

When I arrived at the hotel in Kundiawa there weren’t any bookings because the trip had been called off but the boss hadn't bothered to let me know. The stomach-churning barge trip had been unnecessary but I didn’t really mind. It had been an unrepeatable experience.

I had a friend who lived about a hundred kilometres away in ‘Mt. Hagen’ who I hadn't seen for a long time so I called and he invited me over.

That guy, his wife, and their six-month-old baby lived about twenty k's out of town in a surprisingly remote place. There was a village just down the road and the guy, let's call him Ross, had got himself involved in a big argument with the locals because one of their pigs had invaded his sweet potato patch and “caused a lot of damage”. Probably ten dollars’ worth of kai-kai. Ross was in the lucrative coffee market so I couldn't understand why he was insisting they pay him a hundred dollars to get their pig back.

The ongoing conflict had raised the tension which was already high. While Ross was outside discussing the matter his wife explained to me that she was afraid because when they’d been away recently some people had broken in, raped the staff, and ransacked the house. That’s when they’d bought the huge Rottweiler which was chained up but let loose in the yard at night.

I had the impression that the wife wanted to go back to New York where she’d been a successful model. It was a Greenacres situation with bush-knives but dinner was superb and we all had a good laugh when Ross described a crazy voyage we’d been on together.

The only downer was when Ross realized that the villagers had come and stolen back their pig from right under his nose. He was really uptight about it. Obviously part of a power struggle between him and the locals, but hardly worth the grief.

His wife sped up her alcohol consumption from then on and we must have polished off about four bottles of wine before she started to get a slightly aggressive tone to her voice when she was talking to Ross so I decided it would be good for me to call it a night and go sleep in the guest room outside.

A couple of hours later I was shaken from sleep by Ross. It was pitch-black because the generator had been switched off when they’d gone to bed and rain was pouring down. It was obviously an emergency so I had no time to think or even grab anything to wear so it felt really weird running through the rain into the house, following a torch beam, completely naked. But, there on the bed was Ross's wife, also naked, but unconscious, with some vomit on the bedclothes.

We carried her out to the car using the torch Ross was holding. As soon as she was in the car Ross jumped in the driver's seat and sped off down the driveway leaving me standing there naked in the darkness and pouring rain to shut the gate to keep in the big black invisible rottweiler all hyped up and barking and growling and skipping all around my naked self.

I moved the baby in with me and went back to sleep and to my relief Ross was there when I woke up at first light. He told me that Lucy had been announced 'dead-on-arrival' at the hospital but he’d insisted the doctors persist with their attempts until they’d finally revived her. Ross said she'd taken an overdose of malaria pills but he didn't say why.

After that unexpected near-tragedy I decided to fly down to Australia to see my family for New Year.

The diving job had been fun but scary work so it was the first topic of conversation with my younger brother when he picked me up from the airport in Sydney. It’s impossible to use dive tables when working hard under water because so much more nitrogen accumulates than sports diving, so I’d just had to guess.

And it seems like I did that successfully because, according to the newspaper, the guy who’d taken over from me was bent within the first week and had to be kept underwater all night on pure oxygen and then flown to the nearest decompression chamber in Nowra, Australia. The Army Caribou had been required to fly very low to the sea to prevent the bubble in his spine from paralysing him just by it expanding.