Thurday 21st May

Memorial plaque on the road junction to the Gifu
Memorial on the Gifu summit

View from the Gifu Summit looking west, North Guadacanl to the left, Savo Island, the Florida Group, and in the distance, Malaita on the right

View from Mt Austin, Henderson Field is approximately centre in the distance.

Hi to my cousin John, and Sylvia, thanks for dropping in, also, Gatto in Italy, and if that is Polly calling in from Bantry, drop me an email when you get the chance please.

David and I went for a drive this morning to the Gifu, and Mt Austin. Kakabono Community have gardens around the Gifu, and wanted a bit of advice about what to do with the Gifu site.

The Gifu was the last Japanese stronghold here in WW2, it took the US Marines a few months to finally overcome it, with a horrendous loss of life on both sides. You can still see the Japanese foxholes, and fortifications on the hillside. They could control the whole northern side of Guadacanal from there, the view goes from the Ngella Islands in the northwest, east past the Florida group, to Malaita and Makira.

Last month we had the last Japanese survivor from the battle for the Gifu visit, he’s 91 now, very frail, and he was overcome in revisiting the scene of the battle. His foxhole is still visible, with the large rock over it. The local village has a good selection of WW2 memorabilia, helmets, machine guns, airplane parts etc, and they still find live ammunition and grenades through the area.

Very interesting trip, the road is more suited to 4wd, the little truck was bouncing around a fair bit, and with 13” wheels, you tend to get into the ruts and holes, rather than go over them.

Mt Austin was the controlling hill for Henderson field, you can look straight down the island to the airfield, and the sea around it. It was one of the first hills the US Marines took in the initial landings on Guadacanal.

I’ve spent the evening rigging up lines and traces, and lures for the weekend. I was going to take the surfcaster as well, but am going to settle for the 2 boat rods, the 6’ Silstar with the Silstar EF70 reel, and the full roller 6’ Titan Supreme with the Penn Commander reel. A good selection of hooks, swivels and sinkers, coral can be hard on lines, and a spare reel, the Jarvis Walker GX 7000
Ooooops, I ‘m actually going for orchids, not fishing. And if anyone believes that they don’t know me very well.

Writing up the Japanese Funding Proposal took another giant leap backwards again. While they think the 2 storey classroom/store etc is a good idea, we now have to itemise everything needed for the construction, how many kg’s of nails, lengths of timber, number of concrete blocks etc etc. There goes another week hunting up 3 different suppliers for pro forma invoices, and Keithie wanting it all done yesterday, and in the morning as well.

Tiffany is about ready to just walk away from the whole thing, this is the second time we’ve approached Japan for funding for the same proposal. It was all approved last year, then Keithie decided we had to have a truck included, and the proposal got dropped so fast over that.

We’ve cut out everything that Keithie wants that isn’t Nursery related from the latest proposal, and so far the lady we are dealing with in the Japanese Consul office is happy with it.

Consumer Warning! Coca Cola™, Coke™ are introducing a Bicarbonate reduced cola here. It’s like drinking flat Coca Cola™. Resist it when you see it appear in your local shop. It’s disgusting, flat, and insipid. I got caught tonight with a 2litre bottle of it, I thought the bottle had a leak, till I read around the label, and found Minuman Berperisa Berkarbonat on the label. It’s made in Papua New Guinea. It’s disgusting, vile, and deserves to be relegated to the same place New Coke went to. Why the hell CocaCola™ keeps on trying to fiddle with a good formula is beyond me, everything they’ve tried has been a dismal and disgusting failure.

I’ll be back Monday night, have a good weekend.