Western Adventure

To break up the smelliness, noise, heart-ache, and Dispair of life in Honiara City I ventured to the beautiful Western Province of the Solomons (New Georgia Islands).

This was the plane.

Nah just kidding it was this one, you know what they say - two engines are better than one..

The place is postcard perfect. Brilliantly clear water, coral reefs, white sand beaches, etc. The only thing missing, is Tourists. I guess civil war will do that. The resorts and fancy accommodation are there, standing waiting, but the place was completely empty of foreign visitors.  Perfect!

 

Postcard perfect, I'm not sure how many places there are you can go like this without having squillions of tourists to ruin it. 

To the bewilderment of the locals, and with true Kiwi enthusiasm we elected to join a group of friends (we hadnt met half of them yet) to climb the top of the second highest mountain in the Solomons.  Kolombangara Island (which kind of looks like Rangitoto Island come to think of it). 

Kolombangara Island

...and here is Rangitoto for comparison.

The intention was to climb this grand volcano and get a brilliant panoramic view of the surrounding islands and reefs... we quickly discovered that the ‘cloud’ aspect of ‘cloud forest’ tends to obscure any potential view from the top.

Jane and D'Anne finding it hilarious that rain forest generally means that rain will also occur

If you cant see the top from the bottom, it is very unlikely that you will see the bottom from the top.

Not to worry though, because I was in a forest enthusiasts heaven. Tramping for a couple days through the rainforest forest was defiantly a highlight. The preservation of this particular forest is due in a large part to Kolombangara Forest Products Limited (KFL).

Me in forest heaven

KFL work in partnership with the S.I. government to protect all forest above 400m elevation, as well as preserving a third of the land below this as ‘kustom’ land for the indigenous communities who live on Kolombangara.

KFl are also one of the only forest companies in the Solomons who maintain an extensive replanting programme. While I was there I was impressed to see replanting of a wide variety of species and silivicultural tending regimes to maximise the future resource. I got to see plantation Mahogony, Teak, Spanish Cedar, and (my favourite) Rainbow Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta).

Rainbow Eucalyptus (not my photo, but this is what it looks like!)

This is exciting to see in a country where international logging is devastating much of the forest resource, and only a very small portion of the profits are being retained domestically. As the staff member who showed us around said, “Soon all the trees will be gone in Solomons, but we have been replanting, so our business will remain” not to mention the fragile soils, species and ecosystems that will also remain through their efforts toward sustainability.

Awww.