The Solomon Island: War and peace in the Pacific

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This was published 7 years ago

The Solomon Island: War and peace in the Pacific

By Richard Rogers
Dazzling ... the blues and greens of the Pacific surrounding the Solomon Islands.

Dazzling ... the blues and greens of the Pacific surrounding the Solomon Islands.Credit: Peter Hendrie / Lonely Planet

Richard Rogers explores island battlegrounds that have become eco-tourism havens.

It's not often you'll see a piece of hose used to catch fish but the lad opposite me, brandishing a fearsome-looking rusty harpoon, uses it as his snorkel. With just that hose, a rusty iron arrow and a rubber slingshot to shoot it under water, he sets out every afternoon to spear his family's supper. .

The Solomons, comprising more than 900 tropical islands scattered through the Pacific Ocean, are about a three-hour flight from Brisbane. Of all the islands, just 341 are inhabited.

If they know anything about the archipelago at all, travellers are most likely to have heard of the tourist resorts in Western Province, where wrecks and coral reefs off islands such as Gizo and New Georgia have long been an attraction for scuba-divers willing to head way off the beaten track for encounters with world-class sea life.

But recently the Solomon Islands has seen a growth in historical and eco-tourism, as they recover from a civil war that started a decade ago. A ceasefire is now in place.

This is set to increase further now the country has been brought into the spotlight by the HBO series The Pacific. The series brings to life the era that still defines these islands' history, World War II, in which the Solomons were the scene of battles between Japanese and American troops fighting for control of the Pacific. Everywhere on Guadalcanal, the main island, are places linked to the war.

Aside from a few beautiful beachfront hotels, the capital city, Honiara, isn't really a place to linger. It's usually a transit point for travellers desperate to reach the pristine beaches, diving and eco-adventures of the further-flung islands. But for those interested in Guadalcanal's historical significance, short war-themed tours with local guides are surprisingly moving and a great way to explore the island's beautiful scenery.

At Bonegi Beach, I snorkel through the sandy surf of the Pacific waves, flailing madly when a shark-like yoghurt pot strikes my head. Then, suddenly, 10 metres from the shore, the water clears and multifarious fish, coral and sponges dotted against the ruby rust of a sunken Japanese transport ship spring into view. Shoals shimmer through gaps in the hull and swirling anemones stick to sunken guns.

At Bloody Ridge, overlooking lush green countryside, a few hundred US marines held off a charge of more than 3000 Japanese soldiers, a battle captured in all its brutality in the opening episodes of The Pacific. East of Honiara is the beautiful Tetere Beach, where deep-blue waves break on ash-grey sand that stretches as far as I can see and the sweet smell of mangoes rises from drying husks littering the dunes. Yet landing craft rust away quietly at the back of the beach and I recognise the spot from the show, a scene with thousands of young soldiers wading into the surf. It's hard to imagine such things happened here.

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Vilu, a war museum west of Honiara, is just a lush garden strewn with rusting field guns, tanks and crumbling fighter planes. I watch as the curator's grandson, who could not be older than 14, scales a coconut palm barefoot, twists off the massive green fruit and lets it drop to the ground before descending nonchalantly and handing me a beheaded coconut from which to drink.

But the real Solomons aren't defined by this one island - or by its history. As soon as I set out by boat into the dazzling blues and greens of the Pacific, I understand that this beautiful country is defined, more than anything, by the ocean that surrounds it.

Ideally, a traveller here would spend months exploring the entire archipelago but with only a week to spare, I have time to explore the nearest group, the Florida Islands, a cluster gathered around the island of Nggela, about an hour's boat ride north of Honiara.

Several boat and dive companies operating out of Honiara offer one- or two-day trips here. I set out from the Honiara Yacht Club, a beachfront bar, with Stanley the boatman, who steers through the waves while keeping an eye out for floating coconuts.

The ocean stretches ahead, a vast plain of blue, suddenly broken by the spurt from the crested back of a pilot whale. As we near Nggela's shore our boat is chased inland by a 30-strong pod of dolphins. After about an hour, we arrive at a picturesque village named Boro. Children cluster around the boat, wanting to play. A tour of Boro gives us some idea of life on the islands: a peaceful idyll of subsistence fishing and farming, now increasingly threatened by diminishing fish stocks.

We set off again in the boat, passing the wrecked hull of an American transport ship, which rises out of the water like a giant crocodile. A real crocodile is basking nearby. The next stop is the smaller island of Tulagi, which serves as the old colonial capital. It is now a slightly shabby place but walking between the ruined colonial buildings provides a good chance to go inland, into the jungle that covers most of the islands.

Just a few steps from the beach I'm immersed in vegetation. Real humming, squirming, sweating, rustling, bursting, screaming jungle, filled with the noise of a million buzzing insects and birds, a sound like a parrot losing a battle with a lawnmower. A short distance away from Tulagi, a flurry of flying fish escorts the boat to the smaller island of Mana, famed for its coral reef.

This one is truly idyllic, surrounded by the kind of sea that can only be defined by cliche. Snorkelling there amid the coral, starfish and hundreds of small neon flashes, I float over a shoal of wide-eyed, 15-centimetre fish, each marked with a bright-yellow racing stripe and moving as a single body.

In the afternoon I watch a fisherman unloading the most fearsome-looking beasts from his boat. Coconut crabs are an arachnophobe's worst nightmare: these crustaceans look like giant tarantulas and have claws strong enough to crack open a coconut, their principal food. I eat one for dinner that night at the Tulagi Guest House, washing down the mound of crab flesh, which tastes ever so slightly of coconut, with a local SolBrew lager while I watch a full orange moon rising over the water like a sunset in reverse.

The Solomons has several tourist resorts. Best known are the dive destinations of Gizo (on Gizo Island) and Munda (on New Georgia), which both have small airports and flights from Honiara several times a week. These islands are well set up to receive tourists and have hotels and resorts to suit a range of budgets - you can even hire your own private islands through the Gizo Hotel. Companies such as Bilikiki Cruises, based in Honiara, offer island-hopping diving trips and fishing holidays from the comfort of a ''live aboard'' charter boat.

Luxury tourism here is on a small scale: the Heritage Park Hotel opened on the site of the former governor-general's residence in the centre of Honiara last year and the Uepi Island Resort, on a small barrier reef island on the Marovo Lagoon, has just 32 beds.

For me, however, the more basic the better on such holidays. On many of the smaller islands you can slide from a boat into crystal-clear water and believe you are the first person to step onto its sand.

Local conservation groups are doing what they can to ensure the islands are protected. Back on Guadalcanal, I meet Willie Atu from The Nature Conservancy, an organisation that works with islanders to conserve fish stocks and the islands' turtle populations.

The organisation's great success story is the Arnavons, a tiny collection of islands in the most-visited Western Province, which are among the last refuges of the critically endangered hawksbill turtle. Ownership of the Arnavons is disputed by three tribes based on the larger nearby islands of Choiseul, Wagina and Santa Isabel. But when it became apparent that the turtle's numbers were dwindling because of over-hunting for their meat and their shells, which are used in tribal crafts, these tribes came together to establish and maintain a marine protected area.

''The hawksbill is an important resource,'' says a marine scientist with the conservancy, Peter Ramohia. ''Many coastal communities in the Solomon Islands rely on this resource for their food and livelihood. If we lose the turtle, everything goes with it: we lose the food, we lose the income from shells and we lose our culture.''

The model of eco-tourism has been taken up by other communities working with the conservancy in Choiseul province, where several new eco-lodges have been set up in recent years. Tourists wishing to head off the beaten track can fly from Gizo to the town of Taro in northern Choiseul. Landing on the grass airstrip, you will be met by a guide from the Poroporo community and taken on a short boat ride to the Pasa eco-lodge, on a small island within the Parama marine protected area.

For about $SI175 ($21) a night you will get basic lodging (bring your own mozzie net) and meals cooked by friendly locals in a traditional motu (stone oven). On your doorstep is 200 hectares of protected sea, offering frequent encounters with turtles, sharks and large parrotfish, as well as many other species no longer seen outside marine protected areas. From here, the truly adventurous can hire a boat and make their way down Choiseul's south coast, visiting other protected areas and the Arnavons.

TRIP NOTES

Getting there

Solomon Airlines flies to Honiara from Brisbane (3hr 15min) for about $685. Qantas has a fare for about $286 from Melbourne to Brisbane (2hr 10min) to connect and $256 from Sydney (90min). Pacific Blue also flies out of Brisbane with connecting Virgin Blue flights from Melbourne and Sydney. Fares are return, including tax. Australians obtain a visitors' permit on arrival for a stay of up to 90 days.

Staying there

The Solomon Kitano Mendana Hotel (+677 20071, kitano@mendana.com.sb) and its neighbour the Heritage Park Hotel (+677 24007, www.hph.com.sb), on the site of the former governors' mansion, has double rooms from $SI1273 ($157) a night. The basic Chester Rest House (+677 26355, mbhches@solomon.com.sb) has rooms with shared facilities for about $SI203 a night.

Touring there

Travel Solomons (travelsolomons.com) and Tourism Solomons (visitsolomons.com.sb) have one- and two-day history tours of Guadalcanal that can be booked from hotels for about $SI891 a person.

The Nature Conservancy (nature.org) supports projects on the Solomons such as the Arnavons Community Marine Conservation Area, which protects the hawksbill turtle (homeforhawksbill.com).

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