Honiara, Mataniko Cascade Trek

History doesn't sing at a distance. Not to me at least. But more on that later.

In the wake of finding out that a tour of World War II historical sites wasn't going to be in the cards for me, I arranged to go for a trek to a waterfall nearby. It was suggested that I might want to go early to beat the heat. I had no objection to that. I was here yesterday when it was fairly blistering by 10 in the morning, and just got warmer from there. So I set my alarm for 6:45 and got out of here about 7. I went to a store and got some water and then set out for the nearby town of Tuvaru. From there I was to find a little village called Laelae. As I walked into the what I thought might be Tuvaru (there were no signs), I saw a bunch of people standing at what seemed to be one of the van/bus stops. I walked up to them and one of the people standing there greeted me and asked if he could help me. I said yes. I told him I was looking for Laelae. And you know what he said? He said he was the chief of that village. I don't know how often it happens that way. It seems to happen to me a fair amount. I will be looking for someone who is from somewhere and I will just run into that person by accident. Or I will run into one of the most important people from a place that I am trying to find. Here I happened to meet the head cheese of the place I was trying to find.

Anyway, he told me to follow him. He took me to the village and called over what I assume was a nephew (he said uncle, but I think he may have been confused about the meanings of uncle and nephew). He introduced the nephew as Ken. What a great name. He told me what the prices of things were (100 for the guide and 100 for the entrance fee; hmmm, I didn't know about any entrance fee, and there didn't seem to be any gate or anything, but that's okay, it's their show), and sent me off with Ken.

We crossed the river and headed up the hill through the village. As I learned later, the river is called the Mataniko River. And we were headed up to the headwaters to return to where we started. It was quite a climb, even though it really wasn't. But with the humidity and the early heat, it was quite exhausting. Even Ken seemed to feel it. He told me that he's 19 and finished high school. He didn't go on to university; there are no universities in the Solomon Islands and anyone going on has to go someplace else like Fiji or Australia. Towards the top of the hill, we met a couple of kids going the opposite direction. Ken told me that they were living in the bush. He showed me where their village used to be. However during the “tension time” they fled further into the hills and established a new village. They were told they could come back, that the tensions had eased, but they didn't want to come back. (There was a period of rioting a few years back and things had been quite heated. It has settled to peace now and everyone is much happier now.)

We continued up the to the top of the hill and there were some splendid views of the surrounding area.

We rested at the top of an embankment before heading down to the cascade/falls.

And then it was down to a rather amazing waterfall. What you see here is just the bottom of it all, only it's not even really the bottom of the structure of it. To the left is a deep cavern that goes through the rock.

We climbed to the top of the waterfall and the water comes down and splits in two. The near water here comes down behind the point of view and becomes the cascade viewed at first. The far water cascades down the other side and falls into the other end of the cavern and meets up with the water from the other side at the very bottom.

At the very top of it all is a cave from where the water has its source and begins this rather amazing sight. From here, I wish I had been able to take more photos, but as it happened we had to do some swimming. I'm very glad I think of things like going swimming and protecting my camera. I had been told that there was a bit of swimming, but that it was more like wading and there might even be inner tubes. I'm glad I didn't really take that seriously and brought along two large ziplock bags. I was able to put all my stuff into one, seal it and then put the first bag into a second bag and seal that as well. It seemed airtight, thus watertight, but Ken still offered to carry it for me, lest I let it all go in the water. But because it was all trussed up, it was too much trouble to be digging the camera out to take photos every time we went around a bend. So I can only tell a little about the whole thing. It was amazing. The river from the cascade had dug a channel through the volcanic rock. We swam a ways through quite deep water with vertical, but possibly climbable, walls on either side for a couple of hundred meters. Ken was swimming with one had raised in the air holding my camera and other stuff out of the water. The river would turn corners and slow, become shallow and the deepen again. It wasn't that far before we were back to wading levels, but we spent the next hour and a half wading, walking along one shore, then crossing to the other, then wading some more. And the jungle was all around. It was really splendid. If anyone ever comes here I highly recommend this trek. And a waterproof camera (if I hadn't had to replace my camera, I might have opted to get a waterproof camera in Brisbane. Oh well. I have my memories.

As we arrived back in the area of Ken's village, I was able to take my camera back out and take a few more photos of what appeared to be normal daily life.

At the bottom of the river, back at the village, I gave Ken some extra money for protecting my camera so well (not a drop got to it or any of my other stuff), and headed down the road back to the hostel to dry off and rest. I met some more people who are staying here, including a man who is a land use planner. He was telling me about the problems they are having here with development. The lands are owned by the indigenous people here (as it should be). But the rules for anyone to buy some land and develop it are almost prohibitively difficult. This is not just for outside interests, but also for the people of the Solomon Islands. They are currently searching for ways to change the rules to make it a bit easier to encourage development.

After resting for a while and cheering the youth football (soccer) team as they won to move into a tournament final on Friday, I headed out to have a look at the US War Memorial.

But first, I hiked up the hill to have a look at the National Parliament of the Solomon Islands. It's kind of unimpressive, actually.

And this is pretty much all the security there is for the building, although there is a guard at the entrance. (The Solomon Islands, by the way, has a parliamentary system, like Canada, with the Queen as its nominal Head of State.)

I had seen the US War Memorial on the hill as I walked out to take the waterfall trek earlier. It took a bit of searching to find the way, but I did find it by mid-afternoon.

A long time ago, I did a paper on the Plains of Abraham. I researched Wolfe and Montcalme. I read about the battle, about the positions of each, about the mistakes and the strategy, the tactics, where the armies stood, how they moved. And it really doesn't mean much to me. Perhaps if I had read it while standing at the spot, it might have meant more. Or I might have understood it better. Who knows? But when I am actually standing in a place where history has happened, I can see all the spots that are involved and I can imagine it much better.

At the US War Memorial (which, by the way had a fantastic view out over the strait; how do the Americans get such nice real estate all the time?), I read all the plaques about a battle that I have heard about, the campaign to capture Guadalcanal from the Japanese. That is the main island of the Solomon Islands, the seat of government. I never studied the campaign, and I didn't know much about it, in all honesty. I just knew it was one of the most important episodes of the war in the Pacific. But I would read the plaques here at the memorial and then I could walk to the wall and look out and see the spot that was described in the commentary. I even realized while I was up there that I had walked through one of the areas that was the scene of one of the decisive battles in the Guadalcanal campaign. That was the Mataniko (or Matanikau as it's spelled on the plaque) river valley.

It is quite stirring really to look out and think about the fierce fighting that raged not really that long ago. And then to see that nothing really remains to show the scope of it all. (I suppose if I was an avid scuba diver I could somehow arrange to go out and look at the wrecks on the bottom of the sound.) Today, there is just the peaceful city or Honiara sitting on the edge of the water.