Favorite Thing: Located on the outer fringes of Papua New Guinea, the island of New Ireland was over two hours by air from the capital city of Port Moresby. For my short visit to Namatanai, I flew into nearby Rabaul on New Britain Island and then took a smaller charter airplane from there to my final destination.
I had a couple of other trips to New Ireland as well, to the provinical capital of Kavieng located at the northern tip of the island. Those visits were to get two new Caterpillar diesel generating sets up and running.
Fondest Memory: This part of Papua New Guinea was first colonized by the German New Guinea Company in the late 1880s, with the German government taking control of the Company's territory in 1899. In the period (1908-1914) leading up to the First World War the Germans had developed both extensive coconut palm plantations and an efficient local government apparatus of district offices. New Ireland benefited from this period with the construction of many kilometers of roads running up the east side of the Island, roads that were still in use when I was there. Following the upheavel of WWI, the League of Nations in 1920 awarded Australia the mandate to run this territory.
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