In so many ways, the years I spent working on the island of Bougainville shaped my life. The work experience I gained from being thrown headfirst into a job that was so big that it seemed impossible at first to get it done gave me the confidence to never be afraid of any challenges and indeed seek them out.
Eventually, that huge gold and copper mine sparked a catastrophic civil war in which many thousands were killed and which forced the closure of the mine in 1989. It's in the news again with talks about reopening it with another $40 billion to be generated over its life span - click here.
I've just come across this YouTube clip of an "expedition" to the crashed Betty bomber in which Admiral Yamamoto was killed in April 1943. It's a bit hyped up because it's far from being an expedition. We went there in 1971 by simply by chartering a plane and flying from Kieta to Buin ...
... sleeping in a native hut on the beach near Buin ...
... and trekking through the jungle next morning to the crash site.
The following day, we hired a 4WD to take us across the Crown Prince Range back to Panguna. Somewhere in all the dross I had stored for the next twenty years at a friend's place in Canberra, there is a photo of us crossing what was no doubt a crocodile-infested river which the 4WD was unable to cross and in which we then sat for hours, preferring to be eaten by a crocodile than to be dying of heatstroke. If I can find the photo, I'll add it to this post later. As I wrote, Bougainville gave us all the confidence not to be afraid of challenges but to seek them out.
Postscript: All three photos are courtesy of Brian Herde who never went anywhere without his beloved BRONICA, a cheaper alternative to the famous Hasselblad. He died an untimely death in 1999 just 67 years old.
I never found out what killed him. Maybe he never took his ATABRINE.
