My Kokoda Journey: Day 10 in Papua New Guinea (ANZAC Day and Final Day in PNG)

Today was our final day in Papua New Guinea and it was also ANZAC Day (25th of April 2014) so it was going to be an exciting end to our journey in Papua New Guinea. We woke up at 3am so that we would be ready to leave on a bus to get to Bomana War Cemetery in time for the dawn service. My room mate and I actually slept in a little so when it came to 3:30 and we were leaving, we were still in our room but luckily we woke up and answered the phone and pretended we were running late but still coming. Truth was we had just woken up. Still, we managed to get changed and down to the lobby in two minutes which included an elevator trip so we were pretty quick. It was dark out but there were already plenty of people moving around and there was a fair amount of road traffic heading to the war cemetery.

When we arrived we exited the bus and were handed a glow stick and a program for the event which I still have at home (for the memories). There were a lot of people around and we all sat on the grass aside from the sea of graves that were before us. It was a moving ceremony where Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea were all represented in both the dignitaries involved in the ceremony and the spectators. The most moving part however came later.

By far the most moving and emotional part of the war cemetery was all the graves that merely had "known unto God" marked on them as their inhabitants' identities were unknown. As we used the directory to search through names and then find their grave it was sad to see so many name-less graves and we had poppies to put down so some of them did go to some of the unmarked graves while the majority did go to the graves of the men we were looking for you. There were many nationalities presented and after experiencing Kokoda for ourselves, this became more important as we had experienced just a small fraction of what the Kokoda Campaign was like for the soldiers involved.

When we returned the hotel we had breakfast (again, nice not to have to add hot water to food to eat it) and then we spent the rest of the morning finalising our packing as well as relaxing and watching some television in our rooms. A few of us napped for a bit but I also found myself drawn to some Regular Show and Adventure Time that was on Cartoon Network at the time. It had started raining outside which reflected our feelings on leaving the beautiful country of Papua New Guinea. However, the upside was that we would be reunited with our families when we landed back in Melbourne that night. We all gathered down at the lobby before catching buses to the airport. We spent some time at the check-in desk before making us way through their duty free store and into the main airport where we waited for our flight to Brisbane (we then caught a connecting flight to Melbourne).

Arriving in Brisbane was an interesting experience as it was a beautiful sun set and it felt nice to be back in Australia again. We then bought ourselves dinner before waiting at the gate for our flight to Melbourne. The final stint of our journey was at night and, luckily, I had a section of seating to myself so I managed to spread out with another person who decided to share with me and actually got some nice sleep before landing in Melbourne and being reunited with our families.

Kokoda was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I will treasure and be forever grateful with the friendships that I have made through this experience.

Back to regular posts from tomorrow! See you then.

My Kokoda Journey: Day 2 on Kokoda (Day 3 in Papua New Guinea)

Sorry it is taking me so long to get these out! It's just hard trying to find the time with all my procrastinating. You know how it is. Today was our first day waking up on the Kokoda track and our view was incredible. As you can see in the picture below we were above the clouds and when we woke up it was like we were above a sea of white with little islands (mountain tops) peeking up over the top. It was amazing and was one of the sights that made our trip even more worth while. This morning was also the first time we got to hear our trekking guide Pam say "Good morning. Time to get up." This was something we would come to 'love' over the coming days as we waited in our tents having been woken by her awaking others. I think the phrase "Just 5 more minutes" became very popular and people just turned their headlights on and went back to sleep for a little bit longer. As a group, we could take some time to get ready in the morning and often would leave after our 6:30 deadline (we woke up at 5am every day).

After we had 'enjoyed' our ration pack breakfasts (though the porridge we had that morning wasn't so bad) we were told to head up the hill a little bit for a memorial service at the Isurava war memorial. It was an amazing and moving time and the pictures below show some of what we saw. We had about five to ten minutes to look around beforehand and then we began our service with Pam reading a bit of the background of the place as well as one of our sponsors reading a poem. It was really emotional and it all struck home what we were actually doing right now and how the soldiers before us must have struggled. It said a lot about the endurance and courage our Aussie diggers had to withstand during the Kokoda campaign.

After Pam's speech and the poem we all stood around in a circle while our Police members talked more about the soldier's side and then handed each of us a dog tag with a necklace. This dog tag I still wear today and it has our name on it, the date (April 2014) and the Kokoda trail. We were told that we would get our second dog tag when we finished the trail which was something that motivated us as well as made it very special. After this ceremony, the Porters (pictured below, some had already gone ahead to set up our camp for that night) gathered on the steps and sang their national anthem which was both amazing and humbling. Then Silus, the head porter, (who was really a very very nice and amazing person) gave us our morning briefing on the day's trekking which set us up to start our day knowing where we were going (in a general sense, it was still a mystery to us).

When we began our trek we had not been trekking for long (probably just under an hour or so) before we reached a part of the track that used to home Surgeon's Rock where they would perform amputations that could not wait until they were evacuated from the track (which could take weeks). It was a little disappointing not be able to see it (it had been washed down the side of the track a few years ago) but just to be able to stand on that spot and see where it used to be was again a very humbling experience. It was also scary to think of the horrifying conditions that the Australian soldiers had to go through. Today was very much a reflective day. We then continued our trek through some of the beautiful landscapes you see below.

We were then able to stop after a while at a village where we had our morning tea. They were selling bananas and soft drink there but I only had the banana (wasn't feeling up to the coke yet) which was sooo good! It was nice just to sit down and, again, take in our surroundings. Also, the villagers were again so nice! It was an amazing experience everywhere you look. After about ten to fifteen minutes we continued on our journey.

The above photo shows us walking through a small river (we thought those were river crossings, wait until Day 6 (Day 7 in Papua New Guinea)) and below we walked over a bridge. These bridge crossings caused a lot of nerves in themselves as below us was raging rivers and all that was to stop us falling in were some of these bridges. Still, we crossed one a t a time with the help of a porter and a rope (some only had porters to hold on to and boy, did I hold on tight during these ones). The best part was when you walk on a log the whole way across only to find out at the last little bit that it was the only log not secured to the bridge (which explained why it rolled over so much).

We were almost at our lunch break when we came to a part off the track near Eora Creek where we could walk up for a bit and then come to the remnants of some Japanese war materials (like empty shells and some weapons) as well as some of their 'rabbit hole' things they would use to get under and around the mountains as well as to hide at times. It was pretty high up but there was a lot to see.

It was a little entertaining (if not a bit worrying) to see one of our police men trip on something and fall on the old Japanese ammo shells spreading the pile everywhere. It was sort of funny when he had to put it back together again but still, he should have been a little more careful (coming from the person who fell over the most on the track).

These (below) are some of the amazing bridges we got to cross over on our journey and they were actually quite beautiful in an abstract kind of way. It was a lot of fun to walk over these as you felt safer as there were arm rails (of sorts) along the sides and it seemed more stable than some of the ones we had previously walked over. At times it humbled us to think of all the bridges we crossed that the soldiers before us had not.

This is where we stopped for Lunch on the banks of Eora Creek before we continued on our last three to four hour trek up a hill and then down the other side to our camp site at Templeton's Crossing (I think it was Templeton's Crossing 1 [there were 2]). Some of us managed to arrive before dark but those of us who had fallen behind (due to Gastro or falling over a lot [both categories for me]) arrived just after dark so it was fun to cross the bridge you can see below at this time. It was times like these that I was glad for the porters (also as I fell down a lot on the way down the hill [don't blame me, it was muddy. It was bound to happen]) help throughout it all.

The sight of our camp site was definitely a great sight and that night we were able to have our dinner and talk for a bit and just enjoy ourselves. It was also nice to finally have a toilet to go to (even though it was still a drop hole it had a hut over it) and a place to rest our legs for longer than thirty minutes. Today was a great day and we were glad to have put two of some of the hardest days on the track behind us (Days 1, 2 and 6 were the hardest for us but each trekking company has a different itinerary and spread out the days differently). We were able to reflect on our journey and enjoy and appreciate where we were. Plus, it was the first night we were able to go in the river and wash some of the gunk and stuff of us (which was nice as I went to bed with a little less mud on my legs [hooray!]).

I hope to have Day 3 on Kokoda up in a few days, thank you for waiting. See you soon!

My Kokoda Journey: Day 1 on Kokoda (Day 2 in Papua New Guinea)

Welcome to another day on of my Kokoda journey. Sorry for not posting in a few weeks but I got caught up in exams and SACs (yep, that's the story and I am sticking to it). Today I am going to go through Day 1 of my journey through Kokoda which was my second day in Papua New Guinea. After I finish posting about each day I will post up the parts of my diary that I can post (minus a few things and with changed names). We left the Crowne Plaza (the hotel we were staying in Port Moresby) into four groups which left at two separate times (first group and second group and then the third and fourth groups). I was in the first group which meant that I had to get up earlier than the other groups at around 5am to have our breakfast before we left to catch a small plane to the village of Kokoda where we would be starting our trek. I was really nervous this morning but had to force myself to eat something so I would have energy. I guess this is sort of funny as it was where we first started to have to force ourselves to eat anything since on the track you are so exhausted that you just do not feel hungry but you still need to eat something or you will be in trouble. We left the hotel at around 6:30 in the morning and made our way on the rule-less roads to the TropicAir shed where we were weighed (to work out the balance on the light air-craft) and then had to wait an hour before we were ready to go on the plane and fly to Kokoda. The following photos are of our road-trip to the airport which took about ten to fifteen minutes. We saw some interesting things in that time.

Then we arrived and these were the planes were greeted with. They were really small and so you felt every little jolt but it just made it that much more real as to what we were about to do.

This is me awkwardly entering the plane without realising someone was taking a photo.

Once we were in the air however, we were greeted with some amazing views. We were also given our first sight of what we would be hiking over for the next few days. It did not help my nerves but they were not as much of a problem by now as I had accepted it was going to happen and I was actually starting to feel a mix of excitement and anxiety (about the unknown of course).

This is Adventure Park in Papua New Guinea complete with a ferris wheel and a few other attractions.

The NO SMOKING sign had worn off on most of the windows so we knew that we were not allowed to moke, whatever that was ;)

Beginning our descent into Kokoda Village for the first time! It was all becoming so real right about now.

There was a welcome party ready to greet us as soon as we touched down. Everyone was so welcoming that it took us all aback. No matter where we went, everyone was so friendly. I think that is one of the things that struck me about Papua New Guinea and I actually wrote that down on my Kokoda diary.

These pictures are of trees. Yes, we took pictures of trees but these are special trees. They still have bullet holes from the conflict between the Japanese and Australia during the Kokoda campaign. It was an awe-inspiring moment to see it still standing with remnants of battle around us. After we put our packs down we headed into the Kokoda museum but there are a lot of photos in there but I am not going to post any as it is something special that you can see when you go over there. I am also not sure culturally if they would like photos of something so special to some of them all over the internet.

We took a picture of this Kokoda District Court for our Legal Studies Teacher who we thought would appreciate it.

On this oval which was outside the Kokoda war museum there are memorial statues of the campaign. There are more pictures of these down below.

These are some closer shots of the gun-shots (see what I did there) in the trees.

This is the view from behind the memorial on the oval. It was raised on a hill overlooking the rest of the village and the Kokoda air-strip (the name of the village was Kokoda). Below this photo are some closer shots of the memorials on the oval.

After we spent a good thirty to forty minutes (I am actually not sure how long it was) of looking at the memorial at Kokoda we finally donned our packs and started on our Kokoda trail trek.

These trees were used to collect what we thought might be rubber. I am actually not too sure what it was but it was at the start of our trek.

This is on the road between the museum and the start of the track.

These are the arches that start the track. There are similar arches on the other side of the track too. We got photos under both of them but I am not posting them as I do not think people would want their pictures online.

This was a hut that was in a small village we passed through on our first part of the trek.

This was the view from our lunch-break spot we stopped for lunch. We spent about an hour here having our lunch and forcing it down. It was not so hard on the first lunch break but it got increasingly harder to eat anything as time went on.

We then continued our trek and walked through this amazing section of the track. It was fun to try and see where the track was because it was lost under the bushes but it was a fun game (yeah, we had to find fun anywhere we could to distract ourselves. Distractions were key.) anyway.

This was another shot from the lunch break but I am sorry that it the photos are out of order.

This was an awe-inspiring view we received in the second part of our day and we could actually see the airstrip where we landed and see how high we had already risen.

This was one of many amazing waterfalls that threaded through the track. Actually, we climbed up a few of these waterfalls during our trek.

This was our view to one side of the track, it was beautiful. The Kokoda Trail is one of the most beautiful places in the world and if you can stand the physical challenge, this is just one of the many rewards. Photos can not do Kokoda justice.

These are photos of some village children from our last break before we hiked our last hour into the camp site. It was a great sight as the sun was slowly setting behind the mountains which actually urged us on so we were walking in the least amount of dark possible.

Walking in the dark was certainly not fun and I fell off the edge at one point (one of my feet slipped off) but luckily I only fell to the ground and there was a porter to stop me from falling down the hill which would surely have ended in severe injury (if not death). I guess I was lucky it was not near some of the parts we would pass in the coming days because they were certainly much more dangerous and if you fell, you were dead.

Here is one of the village dogs that were more than happy to help us when we did not feel like eating. They enjoyed the trekkers I think for their leftovers as they were not really there for the company.

That was it for our first day on the trek. I am sorry it took me so long to post this but I was busy and then I was procrastinating. So sorry. See you soon (until I can write day 3 really)!