New Bridge is up! But not quite done yet...

Check it out!

      The new bridge is up!  It looks good, but the approaches on each end are still not quite done--the local Department of Works says that the bridge is still temporary, as they are building a new foundation.  The new foundation is being built next to the bridge, when ti is done, they'll shift the bridge over on to the new foundation.

      Needless to say, the entire Aiyura Valley is happy about the new bridge.

Kingston Bridge part II

      So this morning Evan (the boss) and I went down to the bridge to see how things are progressing down there.  We'd heard rumor that the government had lit a fire under the backsides of the local works department in an effort to get things moving, and it looks like it worked!  This was the scene from above a couple days ago: (photo by Gavin Jones)

     and here was the scene this morning at 10 a.m.:

     At that time, it was already more than halfway across the river, and I heard later in the day that it was already all the way across!  We may actually be able to drive across it again before the end of the week.  It's astonishing to see how fast these guys are working.  I'll post more photos of the finished bridge.

Well, it FINALLY happened!

      Yup.  After at least 52 years of heavy use and very little maintenance, this old Bailey bridge in Kainantu has finally given up.  The tanker truck in the river had 2 people in it--the driver had a couple of broken bones, but the crewman was unhurt.  It looks as if the truck rolled completely over and the fuel tank (containing 20,000 litres of diesel) broke off of the back

         
        The bad news is that this bridge is the only road link between the Aiyura Valley and the rest of the world--almost.  There is a rough dirt road (which crosses over another partially falling down bridge), which for the moment is open to dirt bikes and smaller 4x4 trucks.

Andrew in the UK Sanity Enhancement Device

     So yeah, we made it safely back to Great Britain and now are settled into something of a routine while we wait for Baby to arrive.

      One of the biggest differences for me this time in the UK is my Sanity Enhancement Device.  This has taken the form of an old Armstrong MT500 army motorcycle--I mentioned it here before when I bought it.  Having a project of my own to fool around with and ride has been a huge improvement for me over previous times that we have been in the UK.  Previously I've struggled to find a satisfactory outlet for my fix-it urge while on the Green and Pleasant Isle, but this time, this time I've got a genuinely interesting thing to work on.  Here's how it looked when I got it:

      And here's how it looks now:

      Admittedly there's not a lot of visual difference--just new tires, a couple of reprints of vintage decals, and a current tax disc.  It had been sitting for 10 years before I bought it, so I had to go through the carburetor.  I've also replaced the timing belt, (yes, it has a belt rather than a chain), the belt tensioner and idler, the inner tubes, and a few other things.  I've greatly enjoyed getting to know this bike and am happy to have finally gotten it all legal to ride. A friend of mine in Bognor Regis gave me a nice warm coat to wear, I've got a good helmet and nice warm motorcycle gloves, so I'm pretty much set for winter motorcycle riding.  Yeah, I know, maybe not the best weather for riding in, but I'll take what I can get!

       Baby #3 is not here yet, 2 weeks till the due date!

Rescue Trip in the 5 Ton!

This photo is not from today's trip--it's from some other trip.

 
      So, today, around 2:45, my department manager came to me and asked about doing a rescue.  "Some local guys have a big Hyundai truck (HD65) that needs work--they've left a K1,000 deposit and they want to know if we can go get the truck now--they are afraid to leave it parked where it is overnight because people might vandalise it or steal parts off of it."  I wasn't really in the mood, so I tried to push the job off on another guy, but he was otherwise engaged, so I asked Evan if he wanted to go on a rescue and away we went.  We took the 5 ton, (M813A1 cargo truck) because the admittedly sketchy details of where the Hyundai was parked made it sound like it would be too big of a job for the decrepit shop Land Cruiser.  I felt just a twinge of foreboding as we left in a huge cloud of dust (it's been super dry here for months).

      We eventually found the Hyundai parked on the side of a narrow dirt road just above a pretty steep incline.  When we got out of the truck to survey the situation, we were told "oh by the way, the Hyundai has NO brakes."  Swell.  That meant that simply towing it out of there wasn't going to be an option.  Another problem was that the Hyundai (and the 5 ton) were both pointed the wrong way on the narrow road.  They were both pointed UP hill when we needed to go DOWN hill.  We scouted around for a good place to turn around, then finally decided that backing the 5 ton down the hill and turning it around at the first hairpin curve would probably be okay.

       So I cautiously backed down the hill, putting the transfer case into LOW range (which gave me better control as the speeds were much slower and also engaged drive to the front wheels).  At the curve I backed into the bush at the side of the road on the outside of the curve, then carefully (with lots of help from Evan directing me from outside) pulled forward into the bush on the inside of the curve.  The road was quite steep right here and the whole truck seemed to be listing to the right about 30 degrees.  Reverse once more, then turn down hill and voila! we were pointed the right direction.  By this time, a pretty good sized crowd had gathered, maybe 50 people?  Men, women, children, we were apparently the best show in town this afternoon.

      Now I got Evan to stand on the passenger side running board and help direct me as I reversed up this steep hill, squeezing past the throngs of curious onlookers and past the disabled Hyundai.  Once we were past it, we stopped, tied a tow strap between the Hyundai and the truck and then the fun began.

      Naturally, the Hyundai was parked at the only flat spot on the hill, so naturally it wouldn't roll.  Also naturally, whenever a disabled car needs to be moved here, throngs of men rush in and start pushing.  So now we've got 10-15 men pushing this Hyundai, which has no brakes and which is tied to the M813 with a short tow strap.  Naturally this means that I need to keep the 5 ton moving whenever I see the Hyundai moving!  So, with EXTREME caution, I carefully pulled forward while the men pushed the Hyundai until it finally started to roll.  Once it started to roll, I gently lowered it backwards down the hill to the same curve where I had turned the 5 ton around.

      Of course this was not without its own share of difficulties.  Before we had quite managed to get the dead truck turned around, it got stuck on ruts in the road and had to be muscled back into motion while I ever so carefully followed along behind, trying to keep some slack in the tow strap and not to run over any of the men pushing the Hyundai.  It was mildly nerve wracking.

       Bear in mind that during this whole process the Hyundai has NO brakes, which is why we had to be so careful about not letting it run away.  We eventually got the Hyundai more or less pointed down hill with the 5 ton attached to it with a tow strap, but unfortunately, because of the curve in the road and the wide turning radius of the M813, we were no parked 90 degrees to the rear of the Hyundai.  Eventually we realised that we were driving a 12 ton truck and that the rear end of the Hyundai was probably pretty light, so we just put the 6x6 into reverse and pulled the rear end of the Hyundai across the dirt road until we were all lined up a bit better.  Evan and I were pleased with how easy this was to do, I don't think the 5 ton even realised that the Hyundai was even out there.  It simply backed up and dragged the rear end of the Hyundai behind it.

      So now we're all lined up and pointing down hill.  I put the truck into 1st gear, LOW range and away we go.   1st gear LOW is waaay too slow (about 2 mph) so I went up to 2nd LOW and that was a bit better, though men jogging along next to us still had no trouble overtaking us.  They jogged along the road in front of the Hyundai, waving pedestrians off of the road hollering for people to get out of the way.

       This method of lowering a brakeless vehicle down a rough dirt road worked quite well.  The road never really leveled out, only got more steep in some places and less steep in others, so gravity assisted us all the way to the bottom.  We were quite popular all the way down, people waving and smiling, everybody loves the 5 ton.  Every time we take it out it's a Public Relations boost.

       Once down on the flat we moved around to the front of the Hyundai and dragged it the rest of the way back to the shop.  In the rear view mirror I could see that the rear tires on the Hyundai were spinning forwards on one side and backwards on the other, which meant that the driver was trying to use his seized-up engine and clutch as a crude brake, but the 5 ton was just overwhelming his available traction.  We slowed down a bit and carried on without incident UNTIL...

       Home again, home again, we picked a place to park the dead Hyundai in front of the shop, on a slight downhill.  As I braked gently to a stop, the Hyundai plowed straight into the rear of the 5 ton!  The only way I knew that anything had happened at all was because I heard somebody shouting about it from the side of the road, never felt a thing in the truck.  I guess the driver must have forgotten about his crude brake and just coasted right into the back of us without remembering to stop.  I felt bad for him, but I didn't want to shame him, so I pretended not to notice anything, even though the front of the poor Hyundai now has a massive dent in it.  Thankfully his windscreen was already broken before we started, so the extra damage that happened to the glass when he ran into us won't really make a difference.  I was surprised to see that we made it back in almost exactly 2 hours--it sure felt longer than that.

       Another interesting trip in the M813!  That truck is 12 tons of Adventure Mobile.  Since we left in such a rush, I didn't have time to run home and get a camera.  I may try to get a photo of the front of the Hyundai in the next couple of days.

      

UK bound once more...

   So we're off to the UK again in a couple of months.   And once again it's to have another baby!   Number 3 is due in early December.

     Last time we were in England (2011), I had a hard time because I wasn't allowed to work (wrong kind of visa), and it's hard for me not to have some sort of machine to fiddle with.  I got desperate last time and even went so far as to dig bicycles out of rubbish tips in an effort to build my own "custom" bicycle.  The resulting bicycle was moderately cool; it had drum brakes and a three speed hub, both of which were things I had never had on a bicycle before (bear in mind that the last bicycle I had was a single speed, coaster braked, Schwinn Scrambler when I was 11). but without the magic of internal combustion, it was not as much fun for me.  Plus I put the wrong sized tires on it, so it was hard to pedal (I'll fix that this time, though).

     But this time will be different.  My loving wife, who could not bear to see me so miserable again, gave me her blessing to buy this:

        It's a 1986 Armstrong MT500, ex army bike!  I've been wanting one of these for years, so I'm excited about it.  It ticks all the right boxes for me, it's a little unusual, it's different from any bike I've owned before, it's a street legal dirt bike, it's black, and the MT's have a reputation for being hard to break and easy to fix.  It's got the legendary air-cooled Rotax 4 stroke, and parts are still easy to get for it.  So yeah, I'm happy. 

        I even bought some tools to work on it with and have plans to maybe customise it just a little (like maybe a disc brake front end off of the later MT350, maybe different tyres, perhaps a different headlight and tail light/rear mudguard).  Hopefully I can figure out how to get it legally ridable and may even get a chance to pootle about a bit on it.  If not, well, worst case scenario is that it becomes another one of my long term projects, something to keep me busy whenever we are in England.  In the absolute worst case, I suppose I could sell it again when we leave, but I'm hoping it won't come to that. We shall see!

And Now For Something Slightly Different

       Thursday the phone rang on my desk.  I very rarely answer my phone at work, most of the time I just let it ring.  This is because I am already too busy at work to take on any more work and because I enjoy celebrating the freedom I have NOT to answer it.  It seems that not everybody is able to simply not answer a phone, but I am.   I refuse to be a slave to some box of wires and diodes that screams incessantly at me.  If the person on the other end were standing next to me and saw that I was busy, doubtless he'd wait for a more convenient time.  Phones allow us to be unaccountably rude, screaming at people electronically and demanding that they speak to us.   On the whole, I much prefer e-mail.

        Call me and we'll talk about it.

        Anyway, so on Thursday afternoon my phone rang and for some reason I was sitting there when it rang and for some other reason I answered it.  It was Dave, who works in another department:

        "Hey, can we use the truck to move a big empty fuel tank from Aviation to the main centre?"
        "Ummmm, well, how big is it?"
         "30,000 litres."  He might as well have said "20 baths, a hin and two ephahs".  30,000 litres sounds big, but I really had no idea how big that might actually be.  I thought about it for a second, then decided that I could always drive there, decide it was too big and decide not to do it, and Aviation is only a few miles away, so...
         "Yeah, we can do it."
         "Great!  Do you want to drive or should we use one of our drivers?"   Hmmm.  Their truck driver tends to drive a little too fast for my tastes, and this sounds like a big, awkward load.
          "I'll do it."
          "Okay, see you around 9:00."

          Next morning, around 8:50 or so, I fired up the truck and started letting it warm up.  I asked Ben, who is a fairly new guy, if he wanted to get checked out in the truck as it seemed like it might be a good opportunity for training more truck drivers. He said yes and hopped in.

           At the Construction and Maintenance department we spoke with several different people who all had different ideas about how big the tank was.  One said 6 feet in diameter, another said 2.5 meters, another said something else.  Nobody seemed to be absolutely certain.  We threw a couple of tie down straps into the truck and off we went.

         When we got there, this is what we found:

 
    
      That tank is about 7 feet in diameter nad 23-24 feet long.  It also is pretty heavily constructed and weighs around 5 tons (!), and somehow nobody remembered to tell us that it had a bunch of pipes and stuff sticking out of the top of it that made it look like a small submarine.

     Well, we decided to go ahead and give it a go--the loader was able to lift it, but it couldn't go high enough to lift the tank over the side without the loader's back wheels coming off the ground, so he lifted it up just higher than the bed and Ben and I backed the truck up under it.  Once in place, the loader operator lowered the tank on to the truck and we tied it down.  The loader had to keep the tank lifted up just a little bit or else it would have tipped out of the truck while we were trying to tie it down.

       At first we had the tank tied down with heavy loading straps, using the original military tie-downs on the sides of the bed, but once we had it tied down that way, we weren't happy.  Right about then, Dave showed up in a pick-up truck with a bunch of chains in the back, so we used those and chained the tank down to the bed at the container twist-lock points--that made us feel much better about things.

        So now it looked like this:

     Loaded on to the back of the truck, from the ground to the top of the highest pipe sticking out of the tank is just over 21 feet.  So now we're taller than a double decker bus.   I don't remember what I was doing when this was taken--doubtless looking at that tall pipe and wondering if we were going to fit under the power lines.

       Rather than try to drive out the main gate from Aviation, (which leads down a number of tight turns and under a bunch of low power lines, etc., we decided to drive straight down the airstrip and out a gate that we were told was down there.  I asked the Aviation director to get us a key for the gate, he decided to just go open it himself.  By the time we got to the end of the runway, (we were going pretty slow because the heavy load was a little unstable) the director and a couple of the employees had decided that the truck was too wide to fit through the gate and so they decided to just take down the fence instead.  Here I am driving through the fence:

     From there I was able to turn on to a better road with only a few power lines over it, all of which turned out to be high enough for us to drive under.

      We made it to Ukarumpa without too much difficulty after that, though the entry gate had to be quickly modified in order for us to fit under it.  The load shifted quite a bit on the way, rolling a bit to the right.  Once back at Ukarumpa, the loader unloaded the tank.  In spite of our average return speed of 1 miles an hour, we beat the loader back and had to wait a few minutes for him to arrive.  Here we are, waiting for him to help us start unloading:

      So!  All in all a successful move.  And the mighty Heavy Metal Thunder proves its usefulness once again.

      In other news, I am way behind at work.  I'm having a lot of trouble keeping up with the load and it's starting to get me down--I'm tired of telling people "I'm sorry, but I don't have time for that." but it's true--I really don't have time for any more work--I think I'll be hard pressed to get the stuff that is in the shop done before we leave in October to go have a baby.  So if you know any motorcycle or small engine mechanics who might be interested in this weird life I live, send them my way!!!  

Well, it HAS been a while, hasn't it?

        Shortly after my last post I turned 40.  Suddenly, I was being picked to serve on all these committees, like the Executive Committee of the local branch of the organisation I serve with, a sub committee on that committee which is re-examining the way we govern ourselves here,  another committee dedicated to improving the Tok Pisin language and Melanesian culture school that we run for new people coming to work here from other countries, and an informal committee looking into the best ways to repair and maintain airstrips around PNG.

        At work I've suddenly found myself accepting the role of "Assistant Manager" which means that I have to spend even more time in the office, chained to my computer.  At the same time, more motorcycles and small engines have been pouring in to be worked on.

        At home I often find myself working on e-mails or reading materials related to the various committees that I am now on.

        Anyway, I'm here now.  In the ever diminishing amount of spare time that I have, I've been working on this bike:

 

It's a 1989 Honda NX650 that I bought from a place in Tennessee where I used to work.  When I got it, it was missing a cylinder head, the clutch cover, all the reduction gears for the electric starter, and all the body work.  A lot of the missing parts I had here from an XL600R that I parted out. (that's why I have a kick starter on this NX now).  Other parts, like th ecylinder head, the 1970 SL350 fenders and the starter reduction gears, all came from eBay.  The fuel tank is from a 2 stroke Suzuki Ag bike (a TF125, I think?).  The cylinder was wrecked from having sat outside int he weather for a year without a head bfore I bought it, so I had to bore it out.  I decided to go ahead and go with a big bore kit and went out to 675cc.  The bike had a nearly new rear tire on it when I got it and the front tire on it now is another new one that was given to me by somebody who left a few years ago.  I know the CDI boxes on these things are like the ones on the later XR650L's--that is to say that they are unreliable and DC powered.  After doing some searching on the internet I discovered that switching to an XR style stator would allow me to run an XR style AC powered CDI box that is much more reliable than the original one was.  I'm going for a somewhat battered look on this one, which is why I am deliberately using a tank with a dent in it, a slightly mangked set of fenders, etc.  I want people to look a this bike and wonderif maybe I rode it here from the US.

That's it for now.

      Anyway, I'll keep you posted!

Car Accessorizing, PNG/Andrew Style

      So everywhere you go on this terrestrial sphere, you'll find people who lavish care and attention on their cars.  One of the most common ways that you can tell a person likes his or her car is by whether or not  they choose to accessorise it.  Accessories can be as simple as the classic flower bud vase that used to be popular in old VW's, to million dollar paint schemes and custom made wheels.  Extremely popular accessories would include fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror, steering wheel covers, and bumper stickers. 

     In addition, each country and culture has it's own spin on what it considers to be "cool".  A taxi driver in Peru, for example, might have a seat cover made out of large wooden beads and a statue of the virgin Mary on the dash board.  Another in India might have a small representation of his favorite deity.  In the Southwestern USA, you might find miniature Native American dreamcatchers hanging from rear view mirrors.  In upper east Tennessee it's popular for kids to hang the tassle from their high school graduation caps there. 

      In PNG you'll often find cable ties attached to the windscreen wipers to make the wipers look like huge eyelashes.  Sometimes you'll see a set of deer antlers, (sometimes complete with skull), lashed to the bull bar with sturdy rubber straps.  I've also seen bull horns mounted this way.

       And sometimes, if you are lucky, you might see this:

    Yep!  Those are dead birds.  Not to worry, they have been carefully dried out so that they don't attract any vermin, and they should stay well preserved for quite a long time.  Lovely plumage, to be sure.

          And then there's me.  I did a little accessorising myself over the weekend--our shop rescue truck is down, so I decided to optimise my Land Rover for light rescue duty, (pulling people out of ditches, hauling small trailers, that sort of thing.)  So to that end, I installed a trailer hitch and the biggest clevis I've ever seen:

I made the mount for the ball and the attach point for the clevis out of pieces of scrap I found around the shop.  Don't worry about the 2 little bolts holding the trailer hitch on, there are much bigger bolts underneath, where you can't see them.  I also added a rear view mirror, since all the ones that were on there have been stolen over the years.  The new one is a motorcycle mirror that was given to me by a friend in Tennessee, (along with a bunch of other odd parts).  Here it is:

In this photo you can also see a couple of my other efforts at accessorsing--namely my custom built grille and the OOOOOOGAH horn that was given to me years ago by a friend who left.  One day I would still like to put a set of the early style narrow headlights in behind that grille.  That would be cool. I've got the parts, I just need to do it...

While I was under there working on the trailer hitch, I discovered that one of the U-bolts that holds the spring on on the right side was missing, (I assume it must have broken and pieces fell out), so I replaced it with an old one that I had.  I was puzzled as to why the U-bolt had broken, it was a new a couple of years ago, and from a reputable company.  In contrast, the one I put back in had been on there with an older set of springs I for many many years.  I plan to keep an eye on all the other new ones to see if they start breaking, too.

Bush Truckers!

       So early this week a guy came into the shop and asked about hiring us to haul a small excavator with our 6x6 5 ton truck (M813A1 for those who care).  I gave him an estimate of what it would cost, he was quite happy with the price, even paid 100% up front.

Loaded up: I was impressed with the loading ramp they had built--looks like somebody's been measuring our truck's deck height!  all photos courtesy of Marty.

       Now at this point some of you might (logically) be asking why a bunch of missionaries with a truck would be charging at all.  That's a fair question.  The reason is because if we didn't, we wouldn't be able to do it at all.  So we charge enough to cover our costs, but then we have to be careful not to undercut our competition, because we aren't here to steal anybody else's business.  So whatever we take in that is over and above our operating costs gets plowed back into other areas where we don't charge enough.  A real business would be interested in turning a profit, as part of a non-profit organisation, we are usually content to simply stay out of debt.  In the case of our off-road trucking service, there is nobody else locally who can carry loads as heavy as we can on rough dirt roads.  If there were competition, we'd probably have to raise our rates to keep from undercutting them (convoluted, I know).

       Anyway, back to my story:  I'm the shop manager this week, as the incoming manager doesn't get here until sometime next week and the outgoing manager's last day was last week.  So I took the job and took Marty and Evan with me, as there is a good chance that either one of them could end up doing these trips in the future and I knew that the experience would be good for them.

       It was a short haul, a little under 3 hours total time.  It was pretty straightforward, a beautiful day, nice and dry, the roads were all there, no big washouts, only a couple of bridges to deal with, and those were short and in reasonably good shape.

Me saying, "DON'T LET THAT BUCKET HIT THE RADIATOR!"  We ended up chaining the bucket to the bumper and putting a chunk of 6x6 timber between it and the grille.  The chain came loose while we were driving, but the timber and the very sturdy steel grille did a good job of preventing any real damage.  When we got back, I touched up the paint on the grille.  Notice some of the kids wearing winter coats?  It was a warm, beautiful day, but style so often trumps comfort.  These coats probably came from one of PNG's excellent second-hand clothes stores, and most likely came from New Zealand or Australia. 

Photos like this make me realise just how Mighty my beard has become.  The morning glance in the bathroom mirror doesn't do it justice.  Ned Kelly, eat your heart out.

No matter where you go in PNG, natural beauty abounds.

      

Power grid maintenance

         So under the category of "Things I Don't Do Everyday":  Last Saturday I got asked to help repair/upgrade the big power cables that carry electricity into Ukarumpa from Yonki Dam.  The old cables had some kind of an issue I don't fully understand, (although my electrician friend did try to explain it to me), but part of the way that it manifested itself was by making the power pole that I am leaning against in the photo electrically "hot".  That is to say, a barefoot guy who put a hand against that pole was at risk of getting a 240 volt shock (not to worry, all the power was off when this photo was taken).

         Anyway, it was a big job.  Took us all day, I was there almost exactly 10 hours, making sure that the generator was set up not to start automatically, helping to mount the conduit for the cables, running back and forth to get tools out of the shop, helping to move 500 lbs. cable/conduit assemblies, helping to bend heavy gauge copper cable in the generator shed, (the green building to the right of the photo has one of our big back-up generators in it), that kind of thing.

         This photo impresses me with the amount of green and yellow in it.  Oh yeah, my beard is really big and bushy again now; that's me on the ladder.

One Good Thing About the Bridge Being Closed

       One good thing was that I got to drive the truck!  All the kids from Ukarumpa International School (Secondary Campus) were coming back from their annual high school retreat, ("Encounter" for those of you who have been here and experienced it), and since the bridge was closed we needed a large vehicle to carry all their bags and stuff back.  Some of the more adventurous boys asked if they could ride in the back.

Things That Make Me Go "Ugh!"

        So if you are following things that are happening in this area in other blogs, you may already be familiar with the Saga of the Kingston Bridge in Kainantu, and can go look at other stuff.  For the rest of you:

        What we locally refer to as the "Kingston Bridge" is a WWII style Bailey Bridge.  Nothing wrong with that, Bailey bridges are a good design; strong and fairly easily built,  They were designed to be erected while under fire in battlefield situations, but they were never really intended to be permanent structures.  According to at least one reliable source in the Aiyura Valley, the Kingston Bridge has been there since 1962, if not earlier.  I can tell you that int he 10 years that I have lived here, it has received very little maintenance, (cleaning, painting, that sort of thing), and as a result it is well and truly rusting away.  In many places you can use a stick to poke holes through what were once thick steel beams and girders.  Here's a typical example:

      So what, right?  So there's an old bridge that should be replaced, big deal, right?  Yeah, actually it is kind of a big deal, as this bridge is part of the only way in and out for some major organisations in the Aiyura Valley, including, but not limited to: the National Agricultural Research Institute, Aiyura National High School, the Coffee Reasearch Institute, the Summer Institute of Linguistics main translation centre at Ukarumpa,  and Colbrans Coffeelands, just to name a few.  All of these organisations rely heavily on the Kingston Bridge, and in fact several of them need there to be a good bridge in place in order to get heavy trucks in and out of the area.

        We have tried to come up with various solutions to the bridge problem, including the idea of building a ford, but local landowners are very careful with their land and have proven to be difficult to work with.  They are also part of the reason why a new bridge has not been built yet.

       So instead we and/or the local Works Department keep patching up this bridge, hoping that one day a way will be found to put in a new bridge. Recently, the local Works Department completed some major repairs on the bridge, but now, a week later, it is already starting to deteriorate again.  So that makes me go "Ugh!  The bridge!"

        In other news, I am taking on more and more managerial duties at the workshop.  Part of me doesn't mind too much, as management needs to happen and I don't have a problem making decisions when they need to be made, but part of me hates it, because there's still nobody else here to do the work I came here to do, (motorcycles/small engines), and so while I am being assistant manager of the workshop, motorcycle and small engine jobs pile up.  Also being a mangerial assistant means that I get lots more phone calls and have to deal with the public more often than I used to, which means lots of interruptions during the day, which means that a 20 minute job can end up taking 3 or 4 hours.  So that makes me go, "ugh. Management."

        Ugh. Can I end this on a brighter note?  Hmmmm.  Heidi's 8th tooth is finally coming in!  After months of having only 7 teeth,  the missing number 8 is finally showing up, so that's nice.  Oh, I've lost 75 lbs. now since January, that's nice, too.  My goal is to lose at least 100 lbs., possibly more, we'll see how it goes.  I owe a lot of credit to my lovely wife, who has managed to come up with a PNG adaptation of the South Beach diet.  Thanks, dear!

My SECOND Wreck recovery Call-Out

    So Tony was out again, this time for a week while he gets training for another position that he'll be taking up in January.  Two big things happened while he was gone:

    1.) The Kingston Bridge in Kainantu sustained heavy damage when a couple of big trucks loaded with green coffee beans crossed it.  As I understand it, the first truck crossed over and the bridge made alarming noises.  The second truck crossed over and 3 or 4 of the load bearing I-beams underneath the bridge (already very heavily rusted), snapped.  The third truck decided not to try his luck, he turned around and went back home.  This bridge is vitally important, not only to our organisation, but also to half-a dozen other organisations of national significance, which all happen to be located in the Aiyura Valley.  If this bridge goes down, then there is no really practicable way to get in and out of the valley, certainly not by road anyway.  So naturally representatives of some of these organisations all showed up the next morning to take a look at the bridge and decide what to do.  We took a trip to the Department of Public Works in Kainantu and asked if they had any of the parts needed to fix the bridge.  The best that we could find was a collection of 7 bent and rusty I-beams buried in somebody's garden near the Work Department!  So we took those back to our workshop and straightened them out.  Just after we had started straightening the first one:

   2.) happened.  We got a call that one of our employees had been in a bad accident about 60 km away, and had rolled one of our rental fleet vehicles.  I feel I should explain at this point that we keep a small fleet of vehicles, 2 four door Ford Ranger pick-up trucks, 2 or 3 Toyota Hiace vans/busses, and a Toyota Land Cruiser SUV for use by members and employees of our organisation.  This cuts down on the number of people who feel that they need to own cars and thus lightens our workshop work load somewhat.  Well, Evan and I loaded up the rescue truck, (a well-worn Toyota Land Cruiser pick-up truck/ute) and the crash trailer and headed out again.  Here's what we found:

       It's too bad!  That was a sweet little truck.  Only 33,000 km on it.  (For those of you scratching your heads and saying "That don't look like no Ford Ranger!" You're right!  I don't think Rangers like this one have ever been available in the US, and probably not the UK either, though I'm less certain about that.  It has a 12 valve, 4 cylinder turbo-diesel in it--with factory intercooler, 5 speed manual trans, and a limited slip diff in the rear end.  Good stuff.)  It does actually still run, in fact we drove it up on to the trailer, though we had to change one of the front wheels first as one of the tires had popped off of the rim.

        It's a bit hard to say what happened, let's just call it "driver fatigue".  He and his two passengers walked away with minor bruises, (proving that it IS still possible to survive a major accident in a car without air bags--who knew?!) .  One of the passengers claims that the car rolled 3 times, I'm just not sure.  I'm pretty sure it's totalled, though we're still waiting for the insurance company to tell us so.

       We got the initial call around 3:30 p.m. and didn't get back until midnight.  It was no picnic driving up the Kassam Pass with that truck and trailer dragging us down, let me tell you.  At one point we actually ran out of steam and stalled on an unpaved section and the weight of the trailer and wreck started to pull us backwards--a passing police officer hollered for us to bail out, but I got it into 4x4 low range and managed to get under weigh again.  Needless to say, I left it 4x4 low all the way to the top of the Pass after that, even though it meant that the drive train wound up and popped alarmingly every now and then.  I suppose I could have unlocked the front hubs, but I think the extra pulling traction was probably an asset.  We only had to go 60 km from home, but on the way back we were averaging about 15 kph, uphill and down, as the Land Cruiser brakes aren't quite up to the task of handling the extra 2.5-3 tons of weight that we were towing.  (Good news is that as a result of this trip, we're now looking into maybe getting a better truck to use for the rescue vehicle!  We were already starting to look into it, but this has made us even MORE interested in replacing it.)

      Anyway, we made it back alive, then had to leave the wreck and trailer with some friends in Kainantu because there was a big hole in the Kingston Bridge and we didn't want to try to get the trailer over it. 

       For the next couple of days, the Kingston Bridge was Priority One, and so we sent out a crew of guys to work with the Department of Works to replace the broken I-beams in the bridge, some of which were so rusty that they fell apart under their own weight when we removed them. 

       For all of the work we did on it, the bridge is still falling down because the bank on one end is washing away, so this was only a temporary fix.  While it was being repaired, we saw people from the Department of Works surveying the site in preparation for a new bridge, though a lot of work needs to be done to repair the bank before construction can begin.

       But for now, the Bridge is open and even the big holes that were in it for years are fixed now! 

My First Wreck Recovery

 

      So my department head, Tony, is off for a few days of well-deserved vacation.   A perfect time for my first rescue/wrecked vehicle recovery--not the first time I've been involved in a rescue, but the first one that was all my show that involved a wreck recovery.

      Yeah, I'll tell you all about it.  Didn't bring a camera though--it was dark and rainy--wait, I'm getting ahead of myself...

       On my way home from work on Friday, The director of Wycliffe's PNG Branch, (think my boss's boss's boss), flagged me down, aske me who was on call the weekend, (it was me) and said "I don't have much info yet, but a member of our community has been in an accident in a rental vehicle between here and Goroka.  The vehicle is not drivable, can you go recover it?"  Naturally I said yes.

       I didn't want to go alone, so I got ahold of my co-worker Evan and we picked up the AutoShop rescue truck and the crash trailer and headed out.  The wrecked truck was at a church, not far from the Trumpet School.  I knew where the Trumpet School was, but I wasn't sure where the church was.    Anyway, we found the wreck site without too much trouble, (there was still broken glass on the road), but there was no way to get in to the churchyard without turning around, so we went on down the road a little ways to the Trumpet School, where I pulled in to turn around--the Trumpet School has a nice big, flat yard with good access from the road.  We pulled in, turned, and got stuck.  It was hard at one end, where we pulled in, but got progressively softer and muddier as we turned.

        Well, we weren't going to get the truck out with the massive crash  trailer on it, so we unhooked it, got the truck out, (that was a chore), then had to figure out how to get the trailer out.  We had a small electric winch in the truck, thankfully Tony had had the foresight some time ago to put recievers for it at each end of the truck, so we connected it to the truck and ran the hook out to the trailer, but when we hit the switch, (the switch is a lousy piece of junk), it just pulled the truck across the slippery ground to the trailer.  So then we chained the truck to a tree, ran the winch cable out to the trailer and dragged it back.  In the process we bent the extendable wheel under the tongue of the trailer, (that wheel didn't fit properly and was a headache to use, but bending it only made things worse).

       Okay, so now it was REALLY dark out.  We got the truck up near the road, (got the front wheels onto something hard), and then used the winch again to pull the trailer to the truck.  Without the extendable wheel, we couldn't lift the tongue up to the hitch.  We used the winch, but, (wouldn't you know it?) the winch reciever is placed so that when the winch is installed, it blocks the way to the trailer ball, so we could get to within an inch or two of our goal and no farther.  The tongue weight of the trailer is too much for Evan and I to lift, so we spent a hour or two trying to figure out various way to lift it.  We got the jack out of the truck, but it was junk and would only go up about 1.5 inches.  After a few minutes of use, the controller for the winch died, it was useless, it would only feed the cable out, but not back in, so we unplugged it from the winch body and just used an old piece fo scrap steel we found in the back of the truck to cross over the contacts on the winch itself so that we could control it--of course, as it got more and more wet, we were getting worse and worse shocks while trying to use the winch.  Fun times.   "Okay, let the winch out!"  "Okay--BZZT! OW!" whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Bzzt *sparks* bzzzt "Ow!"

      Alright, so it's dark, we've only got one flashlight and the batteries in it are going.  It's now also pouring down rain.  We spent a long time trying to find a way to get that trailer on to that ball.  Finally about 6 PNG guys stopped by, (not all entirely sober, but at least they were reasonably friendly), and started offering advice and suggestions, without us even having to ask.   Before we left Ukarumpa, the director had given me his cell phone, (I don't own one because I very rarely have a need for one here) so every 10 minutes or so the time we were stuck people kept calling us on the phone and asking "where are you?  Are you still stuck?  What are you doing?  Are you lost?  Can't you get somebdoy to help you?"  Always at bad times and with not much useful to offer.   Eventually we removed the winch and got these guys to help us lift the trailer and drop it on to the ball.  (I should also point out that the truck was on a little hill, (the only place where there was reliable traction), and the trailer was downhill from it, which all added to the mess.)  The PNG guys were friendly enough, they remembered me from another wrecked vehicle recovery I had been involved in in that area a few years ago.  I guess I made an impression on them during that recovery--I was on crowd control that day, that was what they all remembered, though it seemed to be a happy memory for them.

        Okay, so we've finally got the trailer back on the truck, handed out K20 to the guys  (about $10 US) and told them to scale it out amongst themselves.  Everybody left happy, though I was a bit ticked off to find that some one had stolen our leaky bottle jack out of the back of the truck while we were working on the trailer.  So we drove back to the church and pulled in behind the wrecked car.   Thankfully the terrain there offered a natural way to get the truck on to the trailer.  I say "thankfully" because we had forgotten the ramps for the trailer.  Unfortunately, the wreck had one front wheel that wouldn't roll, and the steering didn't work.  We tried to get it onto the trailer, but after a couple of failed attempts, the steering tie rod popped off and we found that the threaded end of the rod was more or less shattered, so there was no way to really patch it up.  When we took a good look at the wheel that wouldn't roll, we discovered that the reason why it wouldn't roll was because the wheel was bent--we realised that if we could put the spare tire on, we'd be able to roll it.  The spare tire had a locking lug that needed a key to open it, so we got the key from the driver and then discovered that while it was definitely a rental vehicle, it was an AVIS rental, (! I didn't even know that AVIS was active in this part of PNG!) not one of our fleet vehicles.  At that point I started asking "is this really our job?  Shouldn't AVIS be doing this?"  Anyway, we the key turned out to be the wrong one for getting the spare off and there was no other key, so we decided to leave the vehicle, (it was now after 10:00 pm) and come back Monday  (we had another work-related road trip already planned for Saturday)  with a spare wheel and whatever parts we needed to get the steering going again, (it might even have been drivable after that).  So we took the two passengers who were still there--some of the people who had been in the wreck had already caught a ride back to Ukarumpa in a Public Motor Vehicle), and went back to Ukarumpa.

        It was quarter to 11 when we got to the front gate, which had already been locked for the night.  We honked the horn for a little while until a guard showed up and let us in, (about 10 minutes or so), 

        After I dropped off the guy who had been in the wreck, Evan, and the AS rescue truck, I got in the Land Rover to drive home.  On my way home, I saw the director crossing the road in front of me in his van, so I followed him home, returned his phone and told him that while the wrecked car was indeed a rental car, it wasn't one of OUR rentals.  He told me that we probably shouldn't be recovering it, then.  He said he'd make some calls in the morning and see if AVIS couldn't recover it instead, which I have now learned that they ended up doing yesterday afternoon.

        So!  5 hours, at least 3 of them spent getting the truck and trailer out of the mud, and in the end, pretty much nothing to show for it, except giving 2 guys a ride back to Ukarumpa!  Pretty much par for the course...  I was glad Evan was there, I was all set to abandon the trailer and come back for it on Monday, (which would have been a mistake--the wheels on the trailer also happen to fit a lot of vehicles in this area, so they might have been a little bit too much temptation for somebody), so I'm really glad that we didn't.  I would have done if Evan hadn't been there.

        The next day Evan came along again and we went to Nadzab (the airport near Lae), and picked up the shop apprentices, absolutely no drama.  Though yeah, whoever said the road was really bad was right!  Especially between K92 and Yonki.   Kassam Pass is down to just one lane in several places, though in one area that has been just one lane for a long time has been repaired, so that's a plus.

         So that's the story of our "rescue"...

Are We Depressed?

       So I've been using the crank starter to start up Patrick the Land Rover lately.  Why?  Because the battery that is in it is now at least 6 years old and won't hold a charge anymore, and I can't afford the $150 pricetag of a new battery.  It's not that hard, the engine in it right now has a 7:1 compression ratio, so once you get it spinning, it's not too hard to keep it spinning until it fires up.  Anyway, here's the procedure, for anyone who wants to know:

       1.) Make sure the hand brake is on.

       2.) put the transmission into neutral (this is very important--if you don't do this, there's a chance you could run yourself over!)

       3.) make sure the choke on.  I like to pump the accelerator a couple of times, too, just to get some fuel into the intake manifold.

       4.) turn the front wheels all the way to the left--if you don't the steering dampener ends up being in the way of the crank handle.

       5.) turn the key switch on.

       6.) get the starting crank out from behind the seat, feed it into the hole in the bumper.  I usually have the hood/bonnet up when I do this, as I find it very difficult to get the crank lined up in the cam on the front of the engine's crankshaft unless I can actually look down on the operation from above.

       7.)  start cranking in a clockwise direction.  Trying to crank the other way won't work, the cam on the front of the crankshaft will just kick out the starting crank.

       Once the engine catches, the crank is automatically disengaged from the engine, so there's minimal danger of it flailing around and trying to kill you at 750-1000 rpm's.

        Anyway, the fact that I am hesitant to spend the money on a new battery was on my mind when I had a chat with a buddy the other day about the price of gasoline/petrol.  It's up to about US $8.00/gallon here, and as we were discussing that, I suddenly said, "we're in the mnidst of a depression, man."  "You think so?"  "Sure, look around, no matter where you go, it seems like nobody has any money and the price of everything just keeps going up.  It reminds me of stories I've heard from people who lived through the Great Depression."  I don't think that he was quite convinced, and truth is, I don't know enough about economics to really have any idea what I'm talking about.

          I admit that I do get something of a kick out of crank starting it.  There's just something manly feeling about using your hands to force a big old engine to run.  Crank starting an old Lister generator gives you a similar feeling.   

          Thankfully I don't usually have to drive very far, and the old XR 600 gets a lot better mileage than the Ancient Land Rover does.        

Never Had To Do This In Tennessee....

So chalk this one up under "things I never had to do in Tennessee"--

As you may remember, there are bridges in the area where we live that are in pretty bad shape. The government is working to restore/replace the worst of them, but it is a long process. Anyway, one bridge in the town of Kainantu is getting a little worse every time it rains, and right now is rainy season. Unfortunately, the bridge is part of a major road artery between the Aiyura Valley and the rest of the world.

So because the bridge is going to fall down "any day now", we're desperately trying to prepare by laying in whatever supplies we would normally haul in by truck. This morning I got to play truck driver again and took the ex-USMC M813A1 5 ton truck in to town to pick up 2 loads of fuel. My first load was 20 drums of fuel, my second load was 16 or so. This time we were bringing in petrol/gasoline and diesel to get our fuel station tanks filled up. This fuel is not just for our own use, we also sell it to the local public--there are a lot of trucks in the Aiyura Valley, and if the bridge falls down, ours will be the only fuel station that locals will be able to get to. (Actually, there is another place where cars can get across the river, but the bridge there isn't much better and isn't really suitable for heavy traffic. Plus the road over there is really rough.)

So here's what it looked like this morning:


The fuel comes up from Lae in drums, about 50 or so on our road truck, then we take the 5 ton truck in, put as many drums on as it can hold, (about 20 or so), and drive back to Ukarumpa. This time I had to do 2 trips, as we wanted to get the road truck really light for crossing the bridge.

Here's a shot of the truck parked in the shop at the end of the day:


We're hoping to get in another load of diesel for our generators sometime soon, so I may be doing this again real soon.

Back Into the Swing of Things

Well, we've been a month back in PNG now and you can hardly even tell that we were ever gone. Motorcycles, chainsaws, generators, big airstrip mowers, small lawnmowers, ATV's, and other small engine powered machines are pouring in and I'm beginning to feel like I need to slow them down again somehow.

Clare is adjusting to having two children in the house now, Levi is about 90% done with potty training, and Heidi continues to radiate good will towards all with her big smile. Here she is posing with our duffel bag, which got lost somewhere between Tampa, FL and Brisbane, AUS and arrived here just over 1 month after we did:


In other news, I offered to go pick up the Language Survey Team from an area they were surveying near Lae. I took a friend with me and we left a day early so that we could get some shopping done in Lae before picking up the survey team. We had a productive trip, we got very nearly all of the things we were looking for (which is surprising) and all was going well. On the morning that we were to pick up the team, we found that we had one last errand to do before we could go, so off we went to do it. We were headed to a business that niether of us had ever been to before and had only vague directions on how to get there. While trying to find it, this happened:


Yup! While slowly driving through a fairly busy neighborhood, a group of several men tried to hold us up. One ran out in front of us with a rusty old revolver and started waving it around, while another stood on the side of the road with a big slingshot. 1 or 2 more stood near him, waiting for us to stop so that they could rob us. I think that the one with the gun was supposed to distract us from the real danger, the man with the slingshot.

I long ago decided that in cases like this, nothing improves if you stop, so I mashed the throttle to the floor and held down the horn button to warn the man with the gun that he was in danger of being run over. Eventually he jumped out of the way, but not before his buddy with the slingshot managed to damage our windshield. I labelled it "Attempted Hold-up #2" as this is the second time that I have driven through an attempted hold-up in PNG. It's the third time I was in a car that somebody tried to hold-up, but only the second where I was the driver.

Thankfully, the whole thing was pretty much over in about 20 seconds and nobody was hurt. I was more annoyed than anything, especially as the insurance on our rental vehicle carries a $500 deductible that my passenger and I have to pay!

These things happen from time to time, and not just here.

In other news, my parents have sold my old Ford Ranger, which has featured a time or two in this blog. I'm a little sad, as I did rather like that truck, but also glad because now I have extra bills to pay, (like half of the $500 insurance deductible).

10 years in PNG!

10 years ago today, (January 27th), I first set foot on PNG soil. I don't remember much of that day, I had started out from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, (where I had a 22 hour layover and dozed in the observation lounge of the airport), and then finally to Port Moresby. I was very tired--as I recall, one of my new colleagues who I had met in Singapore, proposed spending the day in a local hotel to get rested up before our next flight to Madang that afternoon, where we would go through Wycliffe's Pacific Orientation Course.

Anyway, it's been 10 years since that day. A lot has happened in that time, but I'm as sure of my calling now as I have ever been. This is where I am supposed to be, and this is the work I am supposed ot be doing. Sure, it's frustrating some times, and life might be easier somewhere else, but we weren't called to a life of ease, were we?

Ahhhhhh, Brisbane.

Ah, it's nice to be back in Australia. We left the US a few days ago and had a mad series of flights between Tampa, Florida and Brisbane, Australia. We were delayed by weather on our first flight, which meant that we missed our connecting flight in Atlanta, which meant that all of our subsequent flights were shuffled around and rearranged and what we ended up with was somewhat different from what we started with, and included what must be one of the longest commercial flights on Earth: Dallas, Texas to Brisbane in 15 hours and 15 minutes or so.

Anyway, these few days in Brisbane have been great, to me it feels like maybe only the second time we've really relaxed since we stopped in Hawaii after leaving PNG back in June. Today, however, we leave and fly back to PNG. We're planning to spend the night in Port Moresby, then tomorrow on back to Ukarumpa!

Here's a photo from the archives, me back when I was still single, riding a borrowed bike (US spec 1987 Honda XL600R) to Madang for Christmas holidays with friends back in 2004, (I think?).