The Kokoda Track

Popondetta , PNG

When Australia found World War II on its doorstep as the Japanese invaded Papua New Guinea, quick thinking was required. Australia’s forces were tied up in the Middle East. They needed more recruits. Quickly gathered, these young, mostly raw soldiers were sent to stop the Japanese before they took Port Moresby.       

Against all odds, they succeeded. Legends grew of the Kokoda Track along which they faced off with the Japanese forces. The stories are not complete without mentioning the Papua New Guineans who helped them: the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels. Over the four-month campaign, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels helped secure an unlikely Australian victory. The Kokoda Track became the life line and the front line in that victory.

Since then, the name Kokoda Track stands alongside Gallipoli as a place of special meaning in Australia’s history.

In 1972 a colleague at the University (Bart) and I decided to give it a go. Friends warned us that it would be physically tough. Bart knew that. He had already walked it from Popondetta. They were right. They advised us to travel light. Given that Bart was a Papua New Guinean and knew the track we figured that we would not need a guide.

We drove to Sogeri and had out last taste of the fine life with lunch at the Kokoda Track Motel, a quaint establishment run by a blustering Australian with the charm of a wounded bull and his nagging Philippine wife. We asked for tossed salad. It was on the menu. A salad bowl arrived.

I looked at it and in my most cutting, sophisticated Australian accent said: ‘I asked for a tossed salad’.

The maitre’d glared at me. With a charm that would make Basil Fawlty cringe he stormed over to our table. He grabbed the salad bowl.

‘You want bloody tossed salad! Here! Have a tossed salad!’

With that he threw the contents of the bowl up into the ceiling fan. The fan cut most of it to pieces and distributed salad shreds across the dining room.

As we stalked out in high dudgeon, he screamed after us: ‘I I hope youse all bloody well kark it on the Track’.

He had a point. Some have died on the Track.  Many are injured or suffer from dehydration and heat exhaustion as they clamber over the nearly 100-kilometre route.

Friends dropped us at Owens Corner where the track starts as it dips down from the Sogeri Plateau for seemingly hundreds of metres before it climbs again before dipping again and then climbing again and so on and so on.

While the mountains are not of Himalayan proportions (the highest point of Mount Bellamy is only 2200 metres) the climbs and descents make the trek seem much longer.

Add to it all leeches, the sauna-like humidity and the belting rain that turns the track into a mud slide and you get the picture.

As we said goodbye, we spied a middle age local sitting watching us, chewing on betel nut and every now and then wincing in pain.

We greeted him. We discovered that he occasionally guided people to Kokoda. He was willing to help us for a few dollars (this was before kina and toea).

‘But why are you in pain?’ asked Bart.

‘I had a fall and broke some ribs the last time I went.’

My ears pricked up. If he was willing to walk with all that agony, he would walk slowly. That would suit me.

I turned to Bart.

‘Let’s negotiate for him to join us. It might be safer.’

Our friends enthusiastically supported my suggestion. Bart harrumphed.

‘You pay!’

I nodded. Bart agreed. I was secretly elated. Bart was far fitter that I was and to be slowed down by a crippled guide seemed to make sense.

I gave no thought to the possibility that the guide would suffer even more. Sadly, my thoughts were mainly for myself.

Of course I checked that he could do it. He nodded enthusiastically, and winced.

He walked slowly off to get his ‘giving idiots along the track’ gear and returned in a few minutes all smiles.  I was satisfied. Patrick was to be our guide.

So off we winced.

To me, the track seemed much as it must have back in 1942. All along, we saw trenches, helmets and rusted weapons. What we did not see were electricity, shops, bridges or guideposts.

We crossed each rushing stream on a log bridge. We climbed up hauling ourselves higher using the tree roots that crossed the path.

At every creek we would stop, soak in the water and burn off the leeches with Patrick’s cigarette lighter.

Patrick turned out to be a very pleasant man with a good knowledge, not of the war, but of the area. We were glad we had him along. I made sure our pace made it easier for him. So thoughtful.

It was a good thing he came. At times, the track seemed to disappear. Bart spent most of the time brown furrowed wondering where we were.

For me, the track was part historical pilgrimage—like going to Gallipoli—but more, an adventure. I mentioned already that Bart was fitter than I was. Nonetheless, I kept going. Sometimes I would lie back in some unnamed stream, peer through the trees up to the ridges hundreds of metres above and wonder how a helicopter could save me.

What was galling was that on one occasion we were both resting, panting, wringing out our shirts and generally recuperating with our back packs and minimal supplies when a group of locals trotted by. I said trotted. They were all seemingly older than us. Men and women: all carrying minor loads such as bags of cement, sheets of corrugated iron, cardboard boxes of tinned fish and the like. Bart and I looked at each other. We struggled to our feet to follow them but they were already running up the sheer cliff to the next ridge.

I hate show offs.

I also hate quadriceps. They spent their time counting each step and linking their progress to my pain register which was working well.

Patrick had stopped wincing. Obviously, a Papuan’s ribs heal quickly. I have lived in the tropics for most of my life but I still found the extreme humidity suffocating.

We would usually stop late in the afternoon and luxuriate in a creek before finding a patch of relatively flat ground for our camp. Then we would cook some dreadful canned muck on our small primus and wish that gas weighted more to make the pack lighter.

We slept in sleeping bags. After the first night, they were mud bags: smelly, heavier with mud and drenching from the rain overnight and arguably more putrid than our armpits.

We would sleep early. Lots of time for chatting to Patrick before nodding off and rising before dawn to be ready to go at first light. Patrick showed a fondness for me that I appreciated.

We were only three. We walked light. We had done other treks. These days people do the Track with porters and carriers. Such luxury.

Then there were the hills. The day we negotiated the horrendous ‘eight false peaks’ is when I was at my lowest.

‘Are we there yet’? By the sixth time I asked it, I could not even speak. Exhaustion? Total.

We endured the rain, the log bridges (sic) that were carried away in the floods forcing us to ford swollen rivers, mud soaked shoes, peeling skin, toenails crumbling and blisters burgeoning over our feet.

And that was only the feet: rashes and bites and stings covered our bodies as well. Stinging nettles thrived. Mosquitoes dive bombed with uncontrolled glee.

 Did anyone mention malaria?

Walking into Popondetta is amazing. You realise that after seven days you have done something that totally exhausted you. Then you think back to how impossible it must have been for soldiers to do the same thing for months, fighting all the way.

Every day you would pass signs of war: fox holes, rusting detritus, trenches and the helmets: all testament to those who died. It is impossible to imagine how the soldiers would have felt: on both sides. What will be over the next hill? Who is hiding in the forest? Where is the next sniper waiting? It is exhausting enough walking the track without wondering if your next step will be your last.

I am a pacifist. I can understand why men join up. I wish they could appreciate that nothing is a war of nations, it is always a war of politicians. Those who fight it are mere fodder to ambition and lack of humanity: regardless of the slogans.

Unlike many similar destinations around the world, Kokoda is has precious little commercialism. There are no souvenir shops. You just do the walk. You will never forget it.