Can My Pony Come Too?

by Rosemary Esmonde Peterswald

  Often we played in competitions on the rugged Wewak Golf Course on the way into town, also long since gone; now replaced by a lush green course opposite Boram Prison. When we played there recently, I was amazed to see a barefooted Pacific Islander walk up to the tee and whack the ball further than I’d seen anyone hit before. In our day, it was the young local children’s favourite sport to leap from the bushes claiming our golf balls in great delight – only to offer us the same ball back for a fee.

  ‘Yu lussem ball, missus?’ they’d ask mischievously, with a glint in their innocent looking brown eyes.

  This time I had a wonderful caddy from the village down the road, who begged me in frustration after I’d mucked up another shot: ‘Lukum yu ai ontap long ball, missus.’

  Taking his advice I did try and keep my eye on the ball and made the green in two shots.

  Afterwards we had a drink with Eric in the clubhouse…an expansive haus win, the bar being a huge esky and payment by the honour system.

  Back in 1972 we coaxed a couple of the other wives to babysit and hired a single engine Cessna to fly to Rabaul for a few of the boys to take on the legendary Jack Newton and his mate, Ian Stanley, in the Papua New Guinea Golf Championships. Our boys were unlikely contenders. Yet, seeing as it was on handicap, Mick, Rob, Eric and a couple of others thought they may have a chance. Due to bad weather we spent a night in the highland town of Goroko, famous for its tribal festivals, where we sat around a roaring fire in the hotel, a great treat after the humidity of Wewak. The local expats were more than impressed that this contingent of ‘top golfers’ were on their way to win the PNG golf championships, buying us copious rounds of drinks, doing little for the fitness of the golfers who were to play the next day.

  Rabaul then was a spectacular harbour city on the Gazelle Peninsula. Now, of course, it’s been ravaged by the Mount Tavurvur and Vulcan eruptions in September 1994 – with a new town built at Kokopo. When we arrived for the golf championships we flew in low over sparkling beaches with stilt villages perched on the edge and others nestled into lush, green, tropical rainforest. Further on, shady streets of louvred houses surrounded the awesome sight of Simpson Harbour. The Travelodge, where we stayed, sat in the midst of a rich oasis – long since gone.

  Needless to say, Ian Stanley and Jack Newton took home the trophies, but not before I had a dance with both, which annoyed Rob no end as he thought they were giving me far too much attention.

  On the way home to Wewak we struck bad weather again, spending two days holed up at the Smugglers Inn – nestled into the shores at Astrolabe Bay in the coastal town of Madang, known as the ‘prettiest town in the Pacific.’ Not a bad spot to be stranded. It wasn’t difficult to fill in the time, dining on the vine-covered deck, swimming in the magnificent rock pool and snorkelling off the beach, although I did feel guilty that my kindly neighbour back in Moem had to look after the children for another two days.

  Often in Wewak we piled into Eric’s speed-boat for a day on the spectacular islands of Kairiru and Muschu with its cascading waterfalls, hot springs and Bali Hai huts, where we’d picnic on the beach. On our recent visit we had lunch in the Tangs’ new haus win at Tang Bay on Muschu, which they allow the local village to use as a kindergarten. A more beautiful spot for a school would be hard to find. Gilbert, head man of the village, proudly walked me through the lovingly tended subsistence gardens, and immaculate houses on stilts, whilst delectable little pikininis with bottomless liquid eyes ran ahead giggling and pointing in delight. I saw where Gilbert distils beans in a steamer to make cocoa, which he sells in Wewak. Unlike many Aboriginal settlements back in Australia, New Guinea villages are often self-sufficient; eggs bartered for animal food and vegetables; chickens and pigs for betel nut or goods from the trade stores, fish for clothes or schoolbooks. Sadly the closer the villages are to a major town the less likely they are to be well cared for and self-sufficient, particularly in Port Moresby where the dreaded junk food has made an inroad.

  An older boy padded sedately beside me, a monstrous pineapple balanced on his curly head. Wading out to Eric’s banana boat later, he proudly handed it to me with a shy grin, before pushing us off the beach. Whilst waiting for us, Valentine, our trusty helmsman, had caught a huge coral trout, which was now in a bucket. That night Eileen dressed it up with fresh spices, limes, garlic, onions and tomatoes and Eric threw it on the barbeque. Once more we sat in the garden overlooking the Bismarck Sea, just as we had those years ago. All that had seemed to change was the years showing on our faces and the new swimming pool in the Tangs’ front lawn.

  My mother made the long trip from Ireland to Wewak to see us in 1973. After she recovered from being stranded in Singapore with the wrong visa and then a virus she caught on the plane, we enjoyed a marvellous three weeks together. She was fascinated with life at Moem, particularly the children, both black and white, who adored having a grandmother to play with on the beach and under the huge palm trees in our back garden. She loved the barbeques and dinner parties that everyone put on in her honour, and going to the Mess for a dining in night or the movies.

  But all too soon we were out at the airport waving her off to Australia where she was to meet up with my father at Ijong Street, having put Cloneen and the gift shop to ‘bed’ for the winter, whilst he ran his Braddon Flyscreens in Canberra for six months.

  My mother wasn’t the only one we saw off at the airport. Constantly we seemed to be standing by this ramshackle building with tears in our eyes, farewelling a family back home; or it could be one of the single officers at the Mess who had become part of our extended family. If it was a senior officer leaving Moem, the soldiers would put on a farewell parade, followed by a farewell dining in night at the Mess – all quite a ritual.

  Sadly, soon it was our time to leave. Rob had been posted to the Jungle Training Centre at Canungra in south-east Queensland.

  With the peal of champagne glasses ringing in the air and amidst much hugging and kissing out at the airport we said a final goodbye to our friends. Phillip was the last one I hugged, as I brushed a tear from his eye.

  ‘Mi sori yu larim mi bihain long,’ he said holding my hand. ‘Mi no lusim yu.’

  And we won’t forget you, Phillip, I thought. But I was unable to come out with the words for the huge lump in my throat prohibited me from speaking. Leaning down, he picked Georgie up and gave her a huge hug and a kiss. Putting her on the ground he patted Charlotte on the head, before turning around and walking away to stand by the fence where he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  My final undoing was when the pipes and drums of the 2nd PIR escorted us to the front door of the plane through a guard of honour of Rob’s soldiers. Michael Somare, the future Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, had to be content to make his way to the back door. With a final wave from the front steps we ducked our heads and went inside to take our seats.

  I didn’t realise then how special my memories of this unusual place would become; how much I’d love going back, as I did for my birthday, when we were ushered up to the dais at the Garamut Tribal Festival to meet Michael Somare. Arriving at the airport the evening before – with Eric and Eileen waiting for us – there was a crowd of Sepik men, women and children clawing at the wire fence, wailing and calling out and thumping their chests in distress. It was a moment before I realised it was the body of a wantok brought home in the balus we’d just landed in that they were waiting for. Standing back we let the coffin pass to where it was lovingly placed on the back of a truck to go to a final resting place.

  Before we boarded the plane in 1973 to go home to Australia, Corporal Nahshon gave Rob a bilum his wife had made.

  He wrote: This bilum is presented to you by us Corporal and Mrs Nahshon for the hard teaching that you have been teaching A Company as all, we hope that you will take this bilum which was made by Mrs Nahshon and put all of A Company in that bilum for sometimes before you forget all about the A Company and the Pacific Islands Regiment as well.
<
br />   Once again thank you very much for your hard work that you have done to bring us PIs to the standard where we should be and thank you for the military work that came out of your knowledge to all soldiers of A Company 2 PIR and we are very pleased that out of your knowledge we learned better ways of doing thing, such as training, work and play games.

  When you finish with this bilum please leave the bilum with Mrs Peterswald and she can carry all her things from and to Canungra Barracks.

  Last of all wish you all the best of luck and we hope you won’t forget us A Company and 2 PIR and perhaps the all of Papua New Guinea Defence.

  Even now as I write this I can see his face; the tears in his eyes as he handed this beautifully typed letter to Rob.

  I hope that Wewak never goes the same way as Moresby has. Yet I know things are often not good. Unfortunately there’s much government corruption, too many men beating up their wives, the spread of aids and the dreaded alcohol, betel nut, steam and other drugs, ruining good people. Yet, to me, no matter what happens, one can never take away Wewak’s stunning beauty and the fond memories we have of our happy times there. Why else would we go back, as so many of us have?

  I think of the time recently when Benny, a jovial Trobriand Islander, drove us at a hair-raising pace in the Tangs’ small truck along the winding dirt road to Cape Wom War Cemetery – where we met with a Japanese family mourning their father shot down during the war. Possibly their only consolation was that he’d perished for his country in such a beautiful spot.

  On the way home we passed elderly barefooted meris, overloaded with huge bilums of oysters balanced on their greying fuzzy heads. We beckoned for Benny to pull over to give them a lift and were rewarded with huge betel nut grins.

  We stopped for others, carrying sackfuls of yams, sweet potato and firewood. All were so grateful we’d picked them up in the scorching heat – for otherwise it would have taken them six hours to get back to their village. Yet Eileen told us we shouldn’t have stopped. For even in the far reaches of the Sepik, insurance companies are ready to pounce. Should we have had an accident the Tangs could have been sued, or worse still our passengers’ wontoks may have taken their revenge out on us, as happens so often in PNG.

  Later we passed a gaggle of carefree, laughing school children in their bright blue uniforms waving as we drove past.

  What does the future in New Guinea hold for them?

  Chapter 26

  Home to Aus and a New Career

  Rob was to become Senior Instructor of Survival and Adventure Training at the Jungle Training Centre in Canungra established in World War II. Over the years, JTCC was widely regarded as the premium jungle-training centre in the world, where officers from all round the globe came to learn the skills that Australians had honed fighting in the jungles of New Guinea, Vietnam and Malaya. Having spent so many days slogging it out in Vietnam and with two postings in PNG, Rob was an apt choice for the job.

  Before Canungra we visited the pretty seaside town of Kiama (the home of the author, Charmian Clift), on the South Coast of New South Wales, where Rob’s parents had retired to a delightful cottage with a picturesque garden, a hop step and a jump from the beach. For many happy days we swam in the surf, walked the headlands and explored the mountains and waterfalls in the hinterland with Fran and Dick and their two children, James and Joanna, together with Rob’s parents.

  Rob’s mother hadn’t been too pleased to lose her son to New Guinea the first time, then Vietnam and New Guinea a second time, so she was more than happy to have us back in the same country and together in Kiama. Neither of his parents had seen Georgie, and of course Charlotte had grown enormously in the time we were away.

  However, soon we were on our way to the small country village of Canungra situated at the foot of Tamborine Mountain, inland from the Gold Coast and nestled into a valley surrounded by the misty mountains of the McPherson Ranges. The army barracks, where our married quarter was situated, were up a hill not far out of the town. Once again we were a close-knit community. Our small weatherboard cottage, one of many in a row, overlooked the golf course on one side and a valley with a small tree-lined creek on the other. We built a tranquil arbour amongst the wattle trees and Rob planted a lush vegetable garden. Charlotte and Georgie had many young children in the barracks to play with and as the streets had little traffic they could run happily from one house to the other.

  It wasn’t long before we joined the riding and country club on the hill behind the golf course. Soon I had a new horse, Jolyan, a fourteen-hand black gelding (a terror to catch, a joy to ride), installed in a paddock which he escaped from twice, once causing havoc on the golf course, including the ninth green that I then had to spend hours trying to restore.

  Often at weekends Rob and I would take it in turns to go horse trekking with a group from the country club through the surrounding mountains. Other times we’d ride up the steep winding road to the old pub on Tamborine Mountain, where we’d hitch the horses to a fence post and have lunch on the deep verandah, with the children playing in the rambling gardens that sprawled down to the rocky stream where ducks and fish frolicked in the cool water.

  During our time at Canungra I went into my first business enterprise. Rob was away quite a bit, so I felt I needed to do something worthwhile to fill in the time and bring in a bit of extra cash. Next door to the post office in the village was a deserted barn of a building. I found out who owned it and made an offer to lease. As funds were limited I drew flowers all over the floor to cover the damp stains and filled the rotting window boxes with colourful stones and rocks to make a display. Outside, I hung a sign: This and That, which described exactly what I was selling – bit of this and a bit of that. And one freezing cold Friday evening Rob and I served steaming mugs of gluhwein to those we’d invited for the opening.

  I came to know a lot of the local craftspeople, many of them farmers’ wives, by going around and introducing myself. A number of them entrusted their paintings, weaving, pottery or anything else they crafted, for me to sell on consignment, often inviting us to their wonderful homesteads for lunches and dinners, tennis parties or just for a ride around their property. Once we went to a wedding in the cutest stone church set down by a creek overhung with weeping willows, where the bride arrived in a horse and buggy. I also went down to Surfers Paradise and talked a couple of the dress shops into letting me sell their garments, also on consignment, which most of my stock was, meaning I had little outlay. It was in a good position on a tourist route up to O’Reillys’ guesthouse in the Binnaburra Ranges, so I’d a constant stream of passing traffic, particularly at weekends.

  Charlotte went to the local school in the village, which she loved. Georgie came with me to the shop, playing happily in a play-pen until getting bored, whereupon I’d take her to the park opposite, keeping an eye on the door of the shop for customers. At weekends I had one of the other wives working, allowing me to still ride and be with the children. I can’t say it was a roaring success, but it more than paid its way. With Rob away instructing soldiers how to survive in the jungle,

  making fire without matches, identifying edible native plants and foods, how to kill and cook snakes and teaching escape and invasion techniques, it gave me an interest. It was also an inroad to Beaudesert where I became friends with a girl running a women’s and babies’ wear boutique on the main street, who supplied me with children’s clothes from her shop to sell on her behalf, giving me a percentage, if in return I’d model for the fashion parades she put on in the town for charity. Even Charlotte was roped into this, proving herself a great children’s model, despite hating it.

  Sadly at this time Rob’s mother died after a long illness and his father and his sister, Wendy, came to stay with us for some time. Rob had flown down to be with his mother, arriving moments after she passed away, leaving him devastated as she’d been a great source of love and inspiration to him over the years.

  In our last year at Canungra we bought fourteen acr
es on Mount Tamborine, planting it out in macadamia nuts, spending hour after hour with Rob’s father and Wendy helping us tend the new seedlings, carrying copious buckets of water up and down the steep tracks. Soon they were flourishing with only the odd one keeling over with not enough water.

  On the whole the climate was superb, with warm days but cooling off at night, when we could light a fire. We frequented a swimming pool up in the barracks often and once again the Mess became our social life. Sometimes we’d go to the Canungra Pub or the small café in the village and down the dirt road to Surfers Paradise for parties or to take the children swimming on Main Beach.

  In 1974 Rob was posted to Russell Offices in Canberra, meaning I had to hurriedly find a home for Jolyan and a buyer for my shop. I was sadder to leave Jolyan than I was the shop. Jolyan ended up returning to the farm from where I bought him, so at least I was happy to see him back with horses he knew. Fortunately one of the other army wives opted to buy the shop. Soon we’d packed up and after a round of farewell parties were heading south to the Capital once again.

  We decided to become homeowners for the first time in our lives, although we’d previously owned a couple of blocks of land near Kiama, as well as the land on Mount Tamborine. After hours of searching we eventually settled for an unusual architect-designed clinker brick house, built around a central courtyard, on Herschel Circuit in the suburb of Flynn with a lovely view to the Brindabella ranges.

  Yet it wasn’t long before we worked out that even though we’d swapped the land in Tamborine Mountain for part of the purchase price, (about $50,000) we needed a second income to pay the mortgage. I was keen to get into something fairly quickly. What to do was the question. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a nine-to-five office job. Besides, I’d long since decided the secretarial world was unlikely to suffer dreadfully if I never typed another letter or took shorthand again in my life. The problem was solved one morning when I was sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen reading the newspaper and saw an advertisement for a real estate salesman. Real estate was something that had always interested me. Something I felt I could be good at. It took me a while to work up the courage to ring the number. The ad had definitely said salesman. Not saleswoman. Or salesperson, as it would today. A kindly sounding lady put me through to a man.