Rapopo Plantation Resort
Papua New Guinea’s Rapopo Plantation Resort located on the exotic shores of this South Pacific island is a haven of landscaped gardens tropically themed décor and cool comfort.
Bitapaka War Cemetery
Rabaul (Bita Paka) War Cemetery was established by the Army Graves Service in 1945 and taken over by the War Graves Commission in October 1947. The cemetery is meticulously managed by the Commission.
It contains the graves of those who lost their lives during war time operations in New Britain and New Ireland, or who died in the area while prisoners of war. Their bodies were brought to the cemetery from isolated sites, from temporary military cemeteries and from camp burial grounds. It appears the Japanese plan was to remove Europeans prisoners held on New Guinea islands from which it would have been more difficult to escape. It seems they were replaced by labour forces drawn from Indian and other Asiatic troops captured in Malaya and elsewhere. This would explain the large number of Indian remains recovered by Australians during the 1945 campaign in New Britain and New Ireland, and the preponderance of Indian Army casualties buried at Bita Paka.
The cemetery contains 1,114 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 495 of them unidentified. Bita Paka is located some thirty minutes drive from Rapopo Plantation Resort.