Historical places in Australia and Pacific

This backyard shack museum is the only above-water attraction Munda can offer (there are heaps of supreme diving under water) and is surprisingly interesting. A local guy called Barney has collected WWII stuff from the jungle and is now showing it at his house. Here, you can see a wide range of aging military knick-knacks that were left behind by the American and Japanese forces. Anything from ordinary military objects like ammunition and hand grenades to personal effects like reading glasses and dog tags is on display. The museum is "officially" named Peter Joseph WWII museum after the first dog tag Barney found (the full name on the tag is Peter Joseph Palatini). Though this tag's owner has never been found, several other dog tags have been returned – mostly to surviving families, but one guy was still alive. The museum can be hard to find, but just ask for Barney.

The Solomon Islands were a major battlefield during World War II. The Allies had several airbases with crude landing strips made up by smashed coral (some of these strips are still in use today) from where they raided Japanese locations and ships around the atolls. The losses were heavy on both sides and as a result the Solomon Islands are sprinkled with wrecks of both warships and fight planes, some on very shallow water inside lagoons. You can dive Japanese transport ships, American dive bombers, B-17s and some wrecks can even be snorkelled. There are also plane wrecks on land, though those are often less intact. You can even paddle out to tiny Kennedy island off the coast of Gizo where John F Kennedy and his crew swam ashore when their patrol vessel PT-109 sunk.