A thermohydrograph takes a walk

Dave sends me a letter and a thermohydrograph an instrument that records temperature and humidity and plots them onto a long strip of graph paper, from Port Moresby. He wants me to fly to Goroka. Carriers have installed a new system some months earlier in the operating theatre of the new hospital and apparently it’s not performing well. Phil continues the service work in Lae by himself. I book a flight and head for the hills. It’s much colder in Goroka and I hire a car and find a Chinese shop, of which there are many throughout the Territory. I need to buy a jumper (sweater), it gets quite cold at night up there. I book into a motel and drive to the hospital.

The sister in charge won’t let me in until I put on a theatre gown, theatre hat clean white theatre wellingtons and wash my hands. I set up the instrument and tell her I’ll be back the next day to pick it up. It will have by then recorded the temperature and humidity over a twenty-four hour period. Just what Dave had ordered.

Thermohydrograph gets stolen

I have the rest of the day and next day to go sight seeing. There is not much to see in Goroka, except once every two years on a long weekend, when the Goroka Show takes place. On these days, Natives come from far and near all dressed up in their native dresses and paints. So do thousands of tourists and the media from all around the world. During those days, Goroka doubles its population, but unfortunately now is nothing on in Goroka, so I stay in the motel and read. The next day I return back to the hospital, get into a gown and scrub up again and retrieve the instrument and put it back into it’s specially designed wooden box, all painted and Carrier Air Conditioning written all over.

At the motel I leave the box in the car and get a big surprise the next morning when I find the car had been broken into and the thermohygrograph has been stolen. Nothing else has gone, well; nothing else was in the car. I phone Dave in Port Moresby who first tells me go to the Police to report the theft and ads …don’t do that again. As if if it was my fault the car got broken into last night.

I report the theft to the local Police Inspector, a white fellow and he tells me the instrument is probably ending up in some straw hut being revered as a religious symbol.


I  have a couple of hours to wait for my flight back to Lae, so I wander over to the Main Market at Goroka, it's not far from the airport. People come from near and far to try to sell their produce, mainly fruit and vegetables. They walk for days to get to the market, then walk back to their villages.

They present some colourful pictures with a lot of them in their native costumes at the market stands which are provided by the local government council on market days.

I drop back the hire car and fly back to Lae to continue the rest of the service visits with Phil. Werner goes  back to Port Moresby, he’s finished his job in Lae.