Sunday 2nd December.

8 days to go.


After 3 previous attempts we finally made the “End of the Road” trip to Lambie. The 4 of us set off, Tweety, Stats, Nemo and I at about 1200. We had an uneventful trip until we got to the river crossing. The crossing is about 5km from our previous best attempt.
Tweety was in command, last time we crossed the river we had a laugh at the bow wave from the vehicle and the height of the splash. It started out that way this time, for about 1 second. Then when we saw the water coming over the bonnet and we had to put on the windscreen wipers our expressions changed. I laughed, but I was in the back seat, Stats and Tweety had other things to say!!


Another couple of kms along we came to a section of the track that was mud. This whole section was maybe 500 metres long and a metre deep. We made progress through it, being pulled from side to side and we bottomed out a couple of times. I think Tweety was as relieved as anyone that we made it. Even though we were all happy, we knew one thing, we had to come back through it, there is only 1 road! The next section of the road was heavily and deeply rutted.


I think it was just like the previous section only dried out. We spent the next few minutes being thrown about the interior of the green machine. We had to negotiate another river, then a sharp turning high rising section of track then down the other side. As we crested the hill we saw our objective. It was a beautiful sight. There were several bays of azure blue water framed by golden yellow sand, if there had been grass skirted natives on the beach I would have thought I was in a Hollywood movie set. It is really a beautiful place. The village was large and clean, people waved and said hello. We thought that this was heaven on earth, until we came to a large area under some trees. This is where things changed.


Some of the locals had been drinking, we arrived at about 1330, we had no idea how long this had been going on. There were some family groups, not many, the majority were males and nearly all had cans of beer. Again, it was a small minority, some defiantly stood in our way, others tried to pull them out of our way for us to go through. Some started becoming agitated we thought we should get out of there. We were sworn at and a couple banged their hand on the side of the green machine. Once we were away from this area everyone was waving and smiling.

It was only a small proportion, maybe 6 people in a large village, but it made us more reserved in our outlook. The people are outwardly friendly, as their culture clashes with the 21st Century it is repeating the errors of the past. We read of similar decay caused by a rapid modernisation, in Canada, USA and Australia the indigenous people all went down this path, I hope this can be stopped here.


On a similar note, RAMSI had to step in and assist the local Police as a riot broke out at the National Soccer Stadium, Lawson Tama. It is the Solomons Cup, the national u23 competition. Malaita were playing a team from Honiara. Honiara scored what is said to be a controversial goal. This ended up being the final score. The Malaitan fans then set about on a rampage. They smashed the Offices of the SIFF Solomon Islands Football Federation. Windows were broken, stones thrown at cars, fights broke out and the crowd moved towards Chinatown. This was the scene of the last riots in March 2006. The previous riots were caused by fighting between Malaitans and Honiarans. It all blew over quickly, well a couple of hours anyway.


That was my excitement for the weekend over. I think the following week may be an anti climax!