Early years spent on Langu Plantation in the Witu Islands before family moved to Rabaul. As an adult I managed RTC World Travel in Rabaul and was there when the Stage 2 plans for the volcano were announced towards latter 1983 and into 1984. Voluntary evacuation of the 'purple zone' resulted in a move to my family home for a few months. Moved to Lae in 1985, then to Pt Moresby until late 1988. Dad, Peter Coote, was born in Samarai in 1926 and lost his father, Philip Coote, the Company Manager of Burns Philp in Rabaul, on the Montevideo Maru in WW2. After the war Gran, Rhoda, and Hannah, returned to Rabaul and, together with Dad (already in Rabaul) and his sister, Diana, took on a run-down plantation, Vunapau, at Keravat, which was later taken on by older brother Dion. Dad had met Mum, Margaret, whilst working in Sydney. As her parents' only daughter, she bravely married him knowing they would be venturing to the Witu Islands to live. After returning to Rabaul from Langu, Dad also ran Elvee Trading, an agricultural store, as well as overseeing plantation managers on Langu (including, for many years, the legendary Dick Doyle!) Probably due to Mum, Elvee also had the Swiss Bernina sewing machine agency in PNG. Many will also have known the wonderful Meg McKenzie who supported Dad so well at Elvee.

Besides being on the PNGAA Management Committee (for far too long! - c25 yrs in 2025) I have been editor of the PNGAA journal as well as President. In December 2008, with thanks to Keith Jackson, and later Phil Ainsworth and a small team of interested people, we founded what became the Rabaul & Montevideo Maru Society, with a goal of achieving a national Australian memorial in memory of all those soldiers and civilians who were sacrificed in the New Guinea islands at the start of WWII. This was achieved in 2012 and a memorial is at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

In April 2023, together with friend and PNGAA colleague, Max Uechtritz, I was honoured and hugely thrilled to be part of the Silentworld Foundation expedition (with John Mullen, Roger Turner, Tim Brown and Neale Maude) to successfully search for the Montevideo Maru in the South China Sea. A lifetime highlight!

The PNGAA has provided many friends and opportunities for which I am both grateful and would not have experienced otherwise, It is a pleasure having so many friends who share and understand our lives in PNG and are interested in the ongoing (and significant) Australia - PNG connections.