Visitors' Book

A huge thank you to both Andrew and Andrew who arranged and accompanied our day walk in Kolombangara! 

The scenery is spectacular and the wildlife and plant life is overwhelmingly inspiring. 

We had such a great time and would encourage all visitors to the Western Province to visit Kolombangara. 

Thanks again and we'll definitely be back to do the full climb next time. 

Jess & Anna

We walked up mt rano via hambere in 2009. Had an aweseme guide who played for the solomon island football team (at least i think he did). Stayed in professor camp before getting to the top the next morning. Its a fair climb! Beautiful weather on the way up but raining on the way down. Ate a lot of chilli taiyo. Fantastic trip. Now back in the UK have a massive photo of olombangara on the wall! Boat back to gizo the next day and a celebratory meal at the gizo hotel - utterly exhausted.

Rod/Amanda

Firstly, many thanks to all who made our stay as rewarding as it was, and especially to Andrew and Rocky. 

For anyone reading this and contemplating a visit, this project is especially worthy of your support. It is a Solomon Islanders initiative, an attempt by an enlightened group (KIBCA) to preseve the wild forests of the Solomons. The group is, crucially, engaged with KFPL, an ethical logging company which practises sustainable logging. KIBCA is trying to teach the children of the region to appreciate and preserve their legacy, so they can simultaneously profit from and retain their natural riches. We observed a wonderfully entertaining and stimulating talk by KIBCA's Ferguson to a group of primary school children at the lodge about the importance of maintaining their primary forest for visitors such as us. You can help Ferguson, KIBCA and the others by visiting Imbu Rano lodge and financially contributing thereby.

The lodge is a wonderful, sturdy building with fantastic views, and we arrived with the rain dinning on the roof. The dawn chorus is lovely. We spent our three days based at the lodge, bird watching from the balcony and reading, with a couple of short intensive walks, but when I return, I will try for the two day walk to the crater rim and back. You need to bring food with you. We shopped in Munda which has several good supermarkets. Dried foods such as rice and noodles, supplemented with tinned stuff is the most convenient, and cookies are a nice treat.

I think the lodge would be improved by having a refrigerato (though I did not miss electric lights), somebody to cook and perhaps access to fresh vegetables. I would also have loved a tower with views of the forest canopy, but we saw some canopy birds from the verandah of the lodge, for instance a beautiful male Superb Fruit Dove. All in all I feel privileged to have gone there.