Fiji
Solomon Islands
Vanuatu

Samoa
New Zealand

Once again we borrowed a 4x4 and this time Fred, Venise, Lucy and myself headed east along the island. It had been raining heavily and before we were too far from Honiara we encountered of many swollen streams and rivers.Our first stop was at a Chinese funded prawn farm. The site covered several acres and consisted of huge manmade ponds that we being artifically aerated with water that is pumped several hundred meters from the sea. The smell from the farm was rather unpleasant and it was hard to believe that the murky, muddy water produced such tasty morsels. We tried to locate the manager of the site so that we could be shown around, but it appeared that all workers were Chinese nationals, with no grasp of English.

Next we stopped at ICLARM, an organisation part funded by the Japanese to investigate ways of cultivating the giant clam. At ICLARM they breed giant clams in circular tanks about three metres in diameter. Once they are more than a couple of inches across they sell them to villagers, who place them in clam beds along the coast and leave them to grow.

Once they reach a metre a more in sized they are harvested and the meat and shells are sold for export. This project appears to have been a success and they are now investigating ways of breeding beche de mer, which are being removed from the reefs around most Pasific islands for both domestic and export consumption. This poses huge dangers to the ecosystems because the sea slugs are responible for the production of the white sand that makes the coral sand beaches of the islands so attractive to tourists.

We continued driving west until we reached the Tambea Resort, we stopped for a drink and placed an order for lunch, which would have on our way back. Our journey west from Tambea did not last too long. After about 20 minutes drive we came to a ford across a river. I wouldnt say that the river was in full flood, but the water was pretty high and the far end of the ford had been washed away. Fred waded through the river, took a look at the far side of the ford and decided that it would not be a good idea to take somebody elses vehicle through. I actually had the same thoughts just about driving in the Solomons; on several occaisions Venise had asked me if I wanted to drive, and on each I declined. If it had been my own car, or a hire car I would have had no qualms, but the thought of inadvertantly damaging their car in one of the monstrous potholes made me err on the side of caution. It isn't just that it is very expensive to get parts and repairs in the Solomons, but also the length of time it takes to obtain them. Fred's small bus had been in the garage awaiting a part for six weeks when we arrived and it was still there when we left.

Five minutes after we got to the ford, a truck laden with passengers arrived. We were about to head back, when we realised that there was more entertainment to be had here than anyhwhere else in the Solomons. It turned out that the driver had been paid to take the passengers and their goods back to their village, he had been driving for about two hours and had another four hours drive ahead of him. It was obvious that he did not want to have to turn around, go back to Honiara and return his money to the villagers. He wlaked across the ford and checked out the far side, then several of the passengers walked across the river. Everybody got onto the truck and he started to move forwards. Fear for the safety of his vehicle obviously got the better of him and stopped and he waded through the river again to see if the far side was as bad as he thought. There then follwed a good period of discussion between the driver and his passengers. Unfortunately we do not know what the outcome was, because we had to head back to Tambea for lunch.

There was nothing notable about lunch at the Tambea, apart from the cat under the table which appeared to have recently lost its foot; the wound was still pink. In fact the Tambea does not seem to be a good place for cats to visit. On our way back to there for lunch we passed a strange looking building next to a melanisian house. Whilst the others went to look at the rooms at the Tambea, I walked back along to the road to find out more. Whilst crossing a stream I couldnt help noticeing the distended body of a dead cat slowly floating down stream. I assumed it had been washed into the stream and drowned during the heavy rainstorms, but it was possible that someone had killed it because it appeared to have been speared with a stick.

The building I was making my way towards turned out to be a copra and coca bean roasting oven. As I approached the house I called out and attract the attention of a young and and her three children. Not only did she speak English as well as I do, but she seems to be a bit of an entrepreneur. She explained to me that because she is not able to cultivate a particularly large plantation, her oven would normally only be in use a couple of days a week. So to maximise its usefulness she buys coca beans from other people that live around her and roasts those as well. Every couple of weeks or so an agent comes out from Honiara and she sells her roasted beans and copra to the agent. This was not the first oven I had seen, but it was the first one I had had the opportunity to investigate.

The return journey to Honiara seemed to coincide with the end of the school day, and before long we had picked up our first passenger, a young girl who was heading in to Honiara. A little further on we came acroos an elderly white man, stuck out in the middle of nowhere. My first thoughts were that he was an World War II veteran who had come to revisit the battlefields that he had fought on. It turned out to be wrong, he was actually a school teacher and had been on the country for over twenty years. We then picked up two school boys, who were also having to get back to Honiara. Riding in the back of the ute with the young Solomon Islanders, was a very quiet journey. Although they could understand and speak English they didn't seem very comfortable doing so. On our arrival in Honiara we dropped them at Rove market.