The bus that carried so many new kiaps
05 February 2016
CHRIS OVERLAND
BILL Brown’s memoir refers to an old bus in which he and other new Cadet Patrol Officers were transported when they arrived in Port Moresby for the very first time.
Both Phil Fitzpatrick and Paul Oates commented that they had been transported in a similar bus when they reached Moresby in 1969.
So was I and I happen to have a photo of the bus, taken when it expired on the road from Moresby to Kwikila.
The photo shows several of my colleagues entreating the driver of a passing Volkswagen to fetch help, while the bus driver tinkers ineffectually with the inoperative conveyance.
It may be of amusement and interest to PNG Attitude readers to see a photo of the bus that has stuck in our minds so vividly even after 50 years since we last rode in the blasted thing.
I just about missed out meeting you, Chris. I was there when Stolz was there and I remember the old clubhouse (just before the pub was opened).
I remember that four of us got behind his VW when it was parked outside the club and lifted the back end just above the ground. Stolzie sat revving the engine for a few minutes before he realised his tail was in the air.
Kwikila held out for quite a while after independence and was apparently closed down (as were most of the high schools) when the headmaster apparently stole all the school funds.
Posted by: Colin Hayward | 17 March 2021 at 03:52 PM
Thanks Phil, it was in the recent times that I learnt from someone that the engine was located at the rear. Unfortunately, there is no VW around to physically prove it. But thanks, Phil.
Posted by: Arnold Mundua | 23 October 2016 at 09:02 PM
Engine in the back Arnold. They were also air cooled. Worked well in the highlands but a bugger on the coast.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 23 October 2016 at 08:29 AM
As a kid I saw VWs running around in Goroka town driven by the expatriates thete. But I never knew that the engine was at the rear end of the vehicle like the modern cars. Is that true?
Posted by: Arnold Mundua | 23 October 2016 at 02:24 AM
When I was eight my father Bill Massingham took on a posting teaching Manual Arts at Kwikila High School from 1969 to 1973.
Mr Stolz, the principal of Kwikila High School, drove a VW just like the one in the picture. I did a few trips to Hula and Kapa Kapa in that bus and it's replacement built on the back of an Austin Truck between 1969 and when I left to go to boarding school at the end of 1971.
Posted by: Tony Massingham | 22 October 2016 at 12:49 PM
Thanks for the photo Chris. The Volkswagen reminds me of a similar car I saw owned by one of our teachers (was it Mr McRae or Mr Wilberg?) at Kandep Primary T School in the 1960s. I think VWs were popular in the territory in those days.
Posted by: Daniel Ipan Kumbon | 05 February 2016 at 12:42 PM
I imagine that's a vast improvement on the one Bill had to endure - look at all those mod cons, glass in the windows - what luxury.
Of course, it's not dissimilar to all the PMVs that ply the Mosbi to Kwikila road nowadays. At the least they have a bitumen road I guess.
Posted by: Phil Fitzpatrick | 05 February 2016 at 08:16 AM