A New Zealand explorer who trekked in West Papua before Indonesian rule says he s saddened to see what colonisation has done to the region s indigenous people.
Philip Temple, who is also a renowned author, was part of a small group who made the first recorded ascent of the Carstensz Pyramid in West Papua in 1962 before Dutch colonial rule ended.
Philip Temple, adventurer & author, first ascentionist of West Papua s Puncak Jaya, in his New Zealand office.
Photo: Maja Moritz The Dutch had already given (West Papua) its own flag and all that sort of thing. And in fact when we made the first ascent of the Carstenz Pyramid, that was the flag we took to the top. It was a West Papuan flag that made it to the top, not an Indonesian flag.
Writer with a passion for PNG and polo
We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Dismiss
By Tom Breen
Normal text size
CHRISTOPHER ASHTON: 1941 – 2021
Christopher Philip Mackenzie (Chris) Ashton (1941 – 2021) was an acclaimed Australian journalist, foreign correspondent, and travel writer. His death on Wednesday May 5 in Buenos Aires, aged 79, marked the end of more than five decades of thoughtful and adventuresome journalism. His foreign postings included Port Moresby (PNG) for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, when Chris reported on the lead up to and the proclamation of PNG independence in 1975, and later as a correspondent from Salisbury, Rhodesia through its tortuous road to independence.
Writer with a passion for PNG and polo smh.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from smh.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Author provided
We used this digital elevation model to understand what was visible to early travellers. Essentially, from each point in the continent we asked “what can you see from here?” This moving window calculates the largest “viewshed” map ever created. When our virtual travellers move, they reorient based on visible terrain everywhere they go. The figure above shows the prominence of features across the continent as increasingly yellow shades against the blue background.
You can clearly make out features such as the the New Guinea Highlands, the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, the Great Dividing Range in the east, and the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.