"Kwikila - a Quiet 'Backwater'" Kwikila by Bwana_Brown

Kwikila is a very small village located along the southern coast of Papua New Guinea, sandwiched between the Coral Sea and the Owen Stanley Mountains about 50 miles (80-km) to the east of the Capital city of Port Moresby. It is near the eastern end of the highway system around Port Moresby, which is cut off from the remainder of the country by the 14,000-foot dividing mountain ranges. I only had one brief visit to Kwikila, to do some work on the two small diesel generator sets that the PNG Electricity Commission was responsible for. Really, there were not a lot of 'attractions' here and the place was not on the tourist 'radar screen'. Judging from the excerpt below, not much has changed in the last 25 years!

The following is an extract from a report of a September, 2004 visit to Kwikila by a missionary team: "The Kwikila CO's had their first HOT shower in 8 months. Kevin, Rod & I have been doing maintenance around the place - fixed up the electric water pump to the header tank on the hot water system. The rats had eaten out all the wiring. What a challenge. We developed a makeshift soldering iron out of a tent peg, found a piece of lead, scrounged a few basic tools and successfully fixed the electric pump. PNG folk don't do maintenance and don't have materials, tools or resources. We are about to attack the community water pumps (hand type) at Kwikila and Boregaina. We still have the DC's washing machine, solar Hot Water System and taps to be fixed. Kev keeps finding new projects. Oh for a decent tool kit."

• Pros:Slow pace of life
• Cons:Nothing to do, limited facilities
• In a nutshell:Give it a miss!