107 Kotuni-Goroka-Lufa-Gono Friday, August 21. Left Goroka in the Land Rover at 8:55 a.m.; altimeter reading 5600 ft. Dropped Van and 4 boys at Danny Leahy's coffee plantation on the Bena Bena River (4850 ft.) and left there at 9:45 for Lufa on the west slopes of Mt. Michael at the western termination what seems properly called the Kratky Range. From Leahy's place a rough road leads up a narrow spur in the great grass-lands of the Asaro-Kami Valley to the main road connecting Goroka with Kainantu and Lae. On this main road the Bene Bena is crossed on a bridge at 5000 ft. The Lufa turnoff was at 5088 miles on our speedometer. The Kami River, draining the eastern end of the big valley, was crossed on a wire-cable swing bridge at 4800 ft. Bridge ca. 50 yards long, with a decking of 4 x 2 sawn timber about 12 ft. wide on which are laid two wheel tracks of Marsden matting. The thrust of our Land Rover, creeping over in 4-wheel drive, raised a series of ripples in the bridge decking several inches high. Ludy Smith, son of the only white man ever hanged in the Territory (he was intolerable in his wholesale shooting of natives in the early days (1930's) on the Highlands) has a coffee plantation just across the Kami. A long, winding, generally easy climb over grasslands and scattered villages brought us to a 6450-foot saddle in a partly timbered spur ridge which separated the grassy Asaro-Kami Valley from the NW slopes of Mt. Michael. These slopes drop down into the gorge by which the Asaro-Kami waters leave the big valley in their flow towards the Purari, and their upper parts are heavily forested. Upper parts of Mt. Michael under cloud, but sharp minor peaks look like recent volcanic. Speedo 5104 miles. Dropping slightly through garden lands and relic gully strips of Castanopsis forest we came to Jack Thick's sawmill at 6400 ft., 5106 miles. Had lunch there. Living conditions very primitive. But it is an excellent timber proposition. A timber exploitation lease of 1600-1700 acres begins close above the mill. A magnificent beech forest containing, besides 2 Nothofagus spp. (called locally Yomba and Graip), other hardwoods including oaks and some Podocarpus softwoods. Log hauling done with a T7 and TL8 tractors and a jinker truck under fairly easy conditions of slope. At the sawmill were Yomba logs a good 4\frac{1}{2} feet in diameter. The breaking-down saw only 60 inches in diameter. The big logs therefore split with blasting powder. Scattered kauri pines tower in the outskirts of the beech forest and in Castanopsis forest in the gullies; estimated to yield 700,000 super feet of lumber according to Thick. Saw the burnt remains of a huge kauri (a few burnt buttress roots in the edge of a native sweet potato garden) variously stated to have measured 36 ft. (Thick) and 32 ft. (John Collins) in circumference at breast height. The timber lease estimated to carry 7 million feet of lumber. Mill established within the last 6 months. Badly planned according to the old Tasmanian sawyer (Bill Belbin) who runs it for Thick. Sited on the bank of a stream which would provide ample water power, it is powered by two diesel engines (one a Japanese war relic); breaking down saw to small and bench badly aligned, etc. The mill and timber yard are in good, orderly condition. An excellent grade of lumber is being produced. The long road haulage to market at Goroka (38 miles) will soon be reduced 15 miles by a short-cut road now being made. Leaving the mill at 12:45 we climbed about a mile to the crest of a spur ridge at 7000 ft. This the highest point on the road to Lufa. Forested except where disturbed by logging operations. Two timber loading ramps there. Dropping gradually from there by a good road winding through splendid tall Beech forest, in about 2 miles we came to the grasslands again at 6550 feet. Above the road, however, the slopes of Mt. Michael continued forest covered. A few very big kauris