Meanwhile, Back in the Jungle...: A Kiwi Forester in the Jungles of West Papua & Sumatra

Living and working in New Zealand in the 1980s isn’t much fun when there are leech-infested jungles somewhere out there to be explored and isolated tribespeople to befriend. So when Ross Lockyer’s mate, Swampy, telephones him with a job offer that seems like simple madness, Ross jumps at the chance to escape civilization yet again. In his latest book, Ross heads into the remote, unmapped jungles of Indonesian West Papua ( Irian Jaya ) to set up a base camp from which to survey and establish a new forestry concession. He’s spotted the perfect camp site from the air, but there’s nowhere to land an aircraft, so first he must find his way to it by water, riding a drum of avgas in an overloaded dug-out canoe into the unknown, across the open sea and up a tangle of crocodile-infested, mangrove-clogged creeks. And that’s just the start of it! The new concession is located in an area where there are no roads, no communications, few villages, and no airstrips—only dense jungle inhabited by a few small, primitive, nomadic tribes, some of whom still practice cannibalism and head hunting. There are no maps, no doctors, and no trappings of civilization. It’s just the way Ross likes it! And with the only decent bathing spot around infested with crocodiles, thousands of miles of jungle to lose his survey crews in, and a mysterious Papuan with blood on his hands for a body-guard, what could possibly go wrong? Ross is in for some real eye-openers this time, experiencing the miracles of modern medicine, eating bizarre bush tucker, meeting jungle tribespeople so isolated they have never seen a white man before, and narrowly avoiding death on numerous occasions. Then there’s the flood that threatens to wipe out all he’s worked for. And when that’s all sorted to his satisfaction and life begins to get a bit cushy, it’s time to take on the jungles and tigers of Sumatra. Throw in the odd corrupt official, heart-stopping boat ride in the dark, wild buffalo encounter, a round-the-world trip with more trips across the Argentinian-Brazilian border than Ross cares to remember, and trouble with the Sumatran locals, and surely it’s time for Ross to bring his wife and kids over to join in the fun! Get ready for more hilarious and heart-stopping tales from the author of An Accidental Bushman, Cannibals, Crocodiles and Cassowaries and The River is my Highway. This time the yarns go global! This book contains some 100 photographs from Ross’s vast collection, which richly illustrate his writing.