Highlands Highway woes

By MALUM NALU
DRIVING up the Markham Valley stretch of the Highlands Highway brings back memories of another day.
It’s Thursday, Dec 22, 2016, and we are travelling up to Goroka.
Seeing the state of the highway, particularly at 40-Mile, Zumim and Watarais gives me a sense of dejavu.
In 1994, the Umi Bridge in the valley collapsed after being hit by a big truck, and crippled the economy of the country for several weeks.
I was the Post-Courier Lae bureau chief at that time, and my daily routine involved getting up early and driving up the valley, taking pictures (and dropping off the film at Nadzab on my way back as there were no digital cameras, mobile phones or Internet in those days) and doing interviews for the next day’s paper.
It was at that time that the importance of the highway – truly the lifeline of this country – became obvious to everyone.
Fears of food shortages resulted in panic shopping in several Highlands towns and business houses in Lae and the Highlands warned of commercial calamity for the region.
The situation was declared a disaster as the financially-strapped authorities sought resources to construct a new, permanent bridge.
Floodwaters and a shortage of necessary parts ensured a delay of five weeks before the bridge reopened to traffic.
Needless to say, we should have learned from that incident, but alas.
All’s not well in the valley and it’s inundated by water when we drive up to Goroka, and is even worse, on Boxing Day when we drive back to Lae because of heavy rain over Christmas.
At Zumim, the Mangyang River is dangerously close to washing away the highway, having already brought down tonnes of silt from the Finisterre Range.
It’s scary thinking about havoc the river could unleash on the valley.
Sections of the Kassam Pass, and past Yonki driving into Kainantu, are in a very bad way.
Potholes abound at Bena near Goroka.
I first travelled the highway just before Independence in 1975, as a child, with my dad in one of those vintage Toyota Land Cruisers from Goroka.
Dusty it was, as the higway wasn’t sealed in those days, it was an enjoyable drive and I reveled in the bucolic countryside scenes.
In 1984 and 1985, while attending high school at Aiyura just outside of Kainantu, I frequenly travelled long the highway and it was always good.
Between 1998 and 2002, while working in Goroka, I constantly drove along the highway, and although some sections were very bad, I can honestly say that it wasn’t as bad as it is now.
Without pointing fingers at anybody, it is my strong feeling that we should never allow the highway to deteriorate, as it so crucial to this country.
We have yet to exploit the full economic potential of the highway, particularly in tourism, and we are missing out on so much by allowing it to depreciate to such an extent.
Road woes aside, the vastness of the Markham Valley and the meandering rivers, panoramic million- dollar views of Markham and Ramu valleys from the top of Kassam Pass, scenes of pastoral poetry at the New Tribes Mission Farm at Yonki, the beautiful man-made lake at Yonki at which a resort should have been built long ago, roadside markets, Kainantu the now-neglected
“Mile-High Gateway to the Highands”, and the very-enjoyable drive between Kainantu and Goroka are enough reason to tell us that we should never neglect the Highlands Highway.
Never has the need been greater to maintain the highway or we lose it.
And if we lose the Highlands Highway, we lose Papua New Guinea.