Tikitouring in a fabulous part of the world: Page 6

 

Richard Moore's article continues ...

The next day we took a boat trip from Fatboys to Munda, a town we had heard much about.

It was about an hour away on the southern side of New Georgia.

The day began reasonably but the weather packed up by the time we got there and the heavens opened.

Munda has a great market and some top diving areas, but today our mission was to check out a couple of WWII-related sites.

The first was an impressive collection of war items at the Peter Joseph Museum.

Named after a US soldier whose dogtags were found, the museum is a fine collection of helmets, shell casings, machine guns and other war relics.

It is the personal project of Barney Paulsen, who is not only a collector but a war historian as well.

Not far away from the museum is the graveyard of a number of US landing craft that were cut in half and then bulldozed off the beach.

They now lie hidden in thick jungle and creepers, their steel towers recognizable among the greenery.

More WWII treasures await us on the way home.

We travel up a tidal inlet on the island of Tahitu in a bid to find an abandoned tank.

The mangroves are eerily silent and we get our feet wet walking from the boat to the rising trail that leads into the jungle.

We are greeted by Hudson, who owns the land on which the tank is, and we follow him as he slashes the occasional protruding vine above the foot track.

When we come across the tank it is a beauty.

I had been expecting a little Japanese one, but it turns out to be a Stuart tank. One of the finest early war models made and one that would have been perfect for the jungle. Not too big, but with plenty of firepower.

Continued ...