Grover goes into depth describing his work, mainly manual and without the benefit of mechanical pile-drivers, bulldozers and graders, and he writes of everything from negotiating swamps to punts and bridges, even building on a curve or against a cliff.

My specific interest in the book was Grover’s bridge-building in the Buna area of Northern (Oro) District, where I was posted as a Kiap from 1969 to 1973.

During this period, I was given the task of locating a route from Pongani on the coast to the Musa Gorge (Safia) for a Comworks bulldozer which would open a track for a diamond drilling rig. It was a distance of about 100km, usually a four day walk.

I walked the track four times but never got to be driven along “my road”, as District Commissioner David Marsh called it.

He was pleased to find an interested officer to go on patrol out of Safia to conduct a lengthy and difficult chain and compass and Abney level (clinometer) survey in the Musa Gorge along with land ownership investigations and the usual Kiap work.

I’m not a road builder. My long-time calling in Australia has been in both the law and tourist accommodation.

In reality my PNG work was achieved through Randolph Gangai, my interpreter (little Pidgin or Motu used in this remote area in those days) and good friend, the always reliable outstation police and with the willing cooperation of village men and women, over 100 of whom enthusiastically regarded the task as a self-help project.

I was no more than the catalyst while the locals hand-felled the dense forest by axe, gently explaining that it was too dangerous for me and to keep out of the way in our bush camp.

I did get to inspect their work as we moved forward over a seven-week period. Regrettably my road, especially in the Didana Range, eventually returned to the forest but you can still see some end parts on Google Earth around bearing 9.54S x 148.66E (search in Google Earth for -9.54 148.66).

In recent years the Collingwood Bay people of Oro have built jetties for the coastal ferry. Gangai Kokona, a son of my old interpreter, comment on this in December 2011 on the Tufi Walkabout and Village Stays Facebook group.

Nowadays, returning as a volunteer, it is abundantly clear to me that the everyday people still have the well-being of visitors in the fore.

They are wonderful people who deserve so much more from their government.

At least Governor Gary Juffa is battling in the right direction against tough odds, not just for these Northern (Oro) nationals but for the whole of PNG.

In Maker and Breaker, Lt Grover says, “We learn from the past to live in the present and to take action so that our people and generations unborn may survive in the future” echoing Torres Strait Islander philosopher, Ephraim Bani’s “the Past must exist for the Present to create the Future.”