23 Apr 2016

A window into WWII history

Following breakfast this morning, we piled into four local mini buses and set out across town for the East New Britain Historical & Cultural Centre Kokopo Museum, where Japanese and Australian relics from the second World War offer a window into a brutal past. A short drive later, we passed several ocean-facing Japanese war tunnels, formerly used for artillery storage, and stopped to view an old bunker tunnel housing a very dilapidated WWII barge. Just outside the entrance, swifts fluttered overhead as friendly locals set out handmade masks, bags, and jewellery for sale. For the next stop, our vehicles climbed the crater rim to a seismic monitoring station—also an excellent vantage over Rabaul. Devastated by a volcanic eruption in 1994, the town crumbled under more than 10 feet of ash forcing survivors to relocate to nearby Kokopo. Though this tragic event occurred more 22 years ago, thick layers of ash are still found surrounding the Yamamoto Bunker. Here, we descended the narrow staircase for a look inside and tried to imagine what times may have been like then. En route back to our hotel, we immersed ourselves in the lively Kokopo Public Market to fill our rucksacks with fresh avocados, passion fruit, boiled peanuts and papayas the size of babies…