Kokoda Trail (or Track?)

Several months ago, some loud aircraft flew over my home city, prompting discussions on Nextdoor on what these planes might be. Someone posted the website info of ADSB Exchange which shows all planes at any place at any moment, plane's trajectory and origin. Being a flight enthusiast and a private pilot, I played with the website and discovered many things. Soon I was checking the regions near Fiji, where I had visited recently, and checked Indonesia & Papua New Guinea. Going to higher resolution from the bird's eye view, I chanced upon a thin line going across Papua New Guinea and read its name "Kokoda Trail". It was new to me, and I looked it up to find that it was a historical trail where Australian soldiers fought the Japanese invaders in World War II between July 1942 and February 1943.

Tour operators offer 8-day or 10-day treks across the narrow trail, which is muddy, mountainous, spans close to 100km and has thick vegetation. I signed up to do it in the "dry" season in June. It is an adventure unknown outside of Australia, however, as I arrived at Sydney enroute to Port Moresby, many Australians looked at me with awe as if I was going to do something very hard. They asked if I had trained enough, and I started to get worried.

Then at the check-in counter of Air Niugini, I found a fellow trail mate, Danni, a zookeeper in Wellington, who had just hiked the Te Araroa - New Zealand's Trail, alone spanning 3,000km carrying a 50-pound backpack. I was getting nervous about my lack of preparation.

The day of arrival I had come a day early before other trekkers in the group, so I had time to see the city of Port Moresby, which is the capital of Papua New Guinea. I usually like to see the people, city sights, and the local culture by walking around in no particular direction. I was strongly advised not to walk alone due to rampant local petty crime and some violent crime in few neighborhoods. The adventure Kokoda organizers who welcomed me promised to escort me around the city the following day. The next day, in the Sanctuary hotel where I stayed, I got to see some tree climbing kangaroos with a small baby kangaroo flanking its mother. The hotel was very green and had a wide variety of trees. The tour operator took me around the city of Port Moresby as promised.

One of the highlights of the city trip was the nature park, which hosted an aviary with many exotic birds, like the bird of paradise, and the cassowary. The museum of Port Moresby was also very interesting and displayed various types of indigenous masks, fish traps, the seafaring boat used by the ancestral voyagers.

By the afternoon, all the remaining 9 trekkers arrived, and the evening was reserved for a group briefing on the trek. I thought it was very well organized. Each person was given an envelope to keep their passports in, so in case of an emergency or medical evacuation, they could locate the passports quickly. Trekkers who had engaged a personal porter for the sleeping bags, mats and other belongings were given a big backpack to put their things in. The porter would carry a maximum of 12 kg weight for the client besides putting their own 6 kg of personal belongings in the backpack.

The items we all had were drybags, hat, water bottle, hydration bladder, slippers, trekking poles, gaiters, hand sanitizer, clothes and body soaps, quick drying towel, pants, shirts, thermal wears, snacks, toilet seat covers, napkins etc.

The briefing emphasized the importance of care for one’s feet during the hike. The multiple days of traversing rivers would make clothing and feet very wet, enabling fungus to grow. Stories were recounted describing how people lost their feet or were evacuated because they could not walk anymore, as the fungus grows rapidly.

I was glad that the same morning I had purchased an antifungal powder, antifungal cream, and tea tree oil from the Port Moresby pharmacy. Mosquitos was another peril we all had to be careful about. Each had to carry a mosquito spray and take the anti-malarial tablets daily. I had Malarone prescription from US and further bought Mozzy hand bands which repelled mosquitos as well as another repellent spray.

Before going on this trip, everybody was strongly advised to get an insurance plan, which would evacuate them for medical reasons via helicopter anywhere along the route. Since this was supposed to be just a walk, I was a little surprised that med evacuation would be necessary for anyone. I asked Helen, our guide, if many people were evacuated lately and found that about 15 of them were evacuated in the recent trip of 150 people. I asked her which day of the eight-day trip did people get evacuated. Surprisingly, some were evacuated on the very first day. That made the trek sound even more treacherous.

We all got an Adventure Kokoda t-shirt and we all had to get some Kinas (local PNG Currency) for tips and souvenir purchases.

After the briefing, we all had to retire for the day as the next day we had to leave early to drive to the hike starting point Owers Corner and commence the trek.