Oil Search Pacific Games Relay in Duke of York Islands, East New Britain Province

The Oil Search Pacific Games Relay today spent the day on and in the water in Simpson harbour and out at the Duke of York Islands.

The team set off on an hour boat ride across a flat sea to the beautiful Duke of York Islands. Along the way they passed a pod of fifty spinner dolphins playing in the calm waters and a pair of pilot whales.

At Molot island, the LLG president received the Baton and took it to a number of historical sites on the island including the old Methodist Church and the cemetery where the first Samoan missionaries who arrived in 1875 are now buried, after a somewhat gruesome end.

The islanders ran a Relay down the length of the island, led by bullock and cart, including all the school children from Urakukur and Kabilomo .

From there the boat, the St George, dropped in at beaches throughout the islands where villagers and school children had gathered on the waterfront to see the Baton.

From the islands and into Simpson harbour, with the smoking backdrop of Mt Tavurur, a spectacular close up visit to the Beehive lava formations in the centre of the harbour.

The Baton was passed to the Rabaul Mayor who took it across to the small beehive where the town’s rugby union team carried it to the top before bringing it down and handing it over to traditional canoe for the paddle across to the large beehive where the rest of the team climbed up to a jumping platform and ran and jumped into the deep sea with the Baton.

With the Baton safe and sound the team then visited Matupit Island where the villagers took the Baton across the steaming hot sands, past the bubbling sea, to the nesting grounds of the Megapod birds and showed the holes where the eggs are harvested out of the hot volcanic ground.

The Oil Search Pacific Games Relay heads inland to Kerevat and across to old Rabaul town tomorrow.

Photo credit: madNess Photography