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Before
dawn had broken, Mick Laritz and I made our way down
the road from Banaba House. We turned left at the
children’s playground and walked beyond the
redundant swimming pool and tennis court. Taking the
second bush path on the right, we followed a
concrete path, covered in slippery green slime. We
went by the old outdoor cinema, now derelict, its
projectors smashed. The path wasn't easy to follow
in the dark, with only the moonlight far guidance.
But Nick knew exactly where he was going. He'd been
this way countless times during his childhood days
on Banaba.
We reached the old
British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC) road and
climbed up the steep hill, fighting our way through
hundreds of sticky spiders webs. We passed the
European, Japanese and Gilbertese Graveyards; they
appeared eerily grey, almost menacing in the
moonlight. At the bottom of the hill, the rush of
the sea was ever present in our ears. Mick indicated
we should take a right turn: a path into the
pinnacles. I'd missed the trail completely in the
gloom, so a torch came in handy to avoid deep cuts
and grazes from the razor sharp coral.
We soon emerged at
a very small sandy beach, which was completely
covered by the high tide. By clambering up rocks and
some concrete steps, we had finally arrived at the
old BPC Weekend Camp. In pre-European days, the
Banabans built their traditional terraces here.
During the B.P.C. era, employees would book the Camp
and sometimes two families might book together and
share the facility. They would bring all the food,
drink and even ice they would require for the
weekend.
Mick could vividly
remember one occasion when he visited the Camp with
his family. While walking along the pinnacle pathway
he dropped and broke a vacuum flask. This
misdemeanour earned Mick a hiding; he could point
out the exact place where he had dropped the flask,
all those years ago.
Today, the path
through the pinnacles is fraught with difficulty. I
wondered how families with their children and
carrying all that luggage could have managed? Why
didn’t someone build a proper path? The answer is
simple: the road used to be nearer to the Camp, but
it was mined between 1973-9 (after the Laritz family
had left the island). Hence, the post (Republic of
Kiribati 7979) Independence path weaves its way
through the pinnacles.
Sadly the Weekend
Camp had burnt down since the halcyon BPC days. Only
the concrete foundations were left, the piles taking
on a surreal Ancient Greek appearance in the
moonlight. With the concrete tables, concrete chairs
and the brick barbecue left behind, one could easily
imagine a scene from a bygone era.
What of the
sunrise! Well that turned out to be a complete wash
out. At twenty past six, gaps appeared in the thick
grey cloud banks which lay to the East - only the
sun didn't emerge through them. We decided to go, as
the sunrise was a dead loss. But just before we
turned our backs on it, we saw David Corrie whizzing
by on an outboard in the distance. He was doing a
spot of: early morning fishing; it would later make
a delicious contribution to our lunch that day:
Battered fresh fish, Banaban style, who could ask
for more? Well, funnily enough lots of us did!
THE
END
Copyright: Garry
Hawkins: October 1997
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