Kokoda, the very name conjures up images of a truly dramatic romantic adventure. Romantic in the real sense of high drama, impending peril, gloriously brave heroics, danger and life lived to the fullest when all that stands between ourselves and oblivion are the bravest of men doing the seemingly impossible.
The history of those boys, youths, young men is there, documented in many books for all to read and having been there. After reading of the campaign, I am of the opinion that everyone interested in our history should put themselves to task and become educated to the amazing story that is Kokoda.
Kokoda for me has very personal memories and I want to share them with you before I take you with me as I once again walk the trail sixteen years after my first crossing.
Sixteen years ago I was doing ‘The Challenge’ program for Channel 9 and I was told by the then producers that we were going to walk the Kokoda trail taking along a group of celebrities. The idea was to bring about some recognition and acknowledgement of the trail and its importance in Australian military history. The feeling had long been that Kokoda was not so much forgotten but undervalued by the government and the general public at large. The public were not well enough informed so it wasn’t that they didn’t care but more that they just didn’t know enough about what went on there and the amazing story of an amazing time in our history. The governments of the past had not paid the Kokoda campaign it’s proper due and there were several reasons for that depending on who you spoke to.
For me personally it was, as I have said before, the experience that would change me forever. To say that I was ill prepared for the adventure would be an understatement of the highest order. I was not prepared, either physically or emotionally for the ordeal that lay before me. Looking back now, as I stood ready to return to the jungle, I was flooded by memories so clear, some for the first time, since returning. This time however, I was much better prepared and still it was one of the hardest things I have done in my life.
I am so very glad that I did go back this time. I remember having only a few months to get fit for the walk and I started reading as many books as I could to give myself some idea of what I was in for. I already knew a little but not really all that much in the real scale of things. One early memory that came back was our first meeting with Charlie Lynn, the larger than life but real life leader of our impending trek. I remember also briefings that I had with him to help me prepare. I remember him saying once that it was important to always have in mind that the weight we chose to carry was the weight we would have to carry. In the event that we were not able to carry the weight someone else would have to carry it for us and that would meant that one of the Papua’s would end up carrying that extra that we would burden them with.
This at the time made sense but it would later reveal itself to be of greater significance. What I didn’t realise at that early stage was that Charlie not only meant the weight of the pack but the weight that we carried on our person, our actual body weight. We were told that it was no shame to claim a lighter pack and that an extra porter could be added to carry what we thought we could not but once we had started the walk we would be responsible for our own pack.
Not thinking this through was to get me into a lot of trouble before long. The lesson learnt or was there to learnt was a lesson about life itself, only ‘carry’ what you know you can and you will seldom be a burden to others,.. know your own limitations and the journey will be so much the easier, knowing that to test yourself from time to time can bring rewards. We were advised to take on a training schedule that would go some way to prepare us for the coming ordeal. We were not to know, of course, that little can prepare you for what was to come.
In my case I was not in any shape to undertake the journey and that was to become one of my life’s great lessons. I was over weight and unfit. This is where I know that ‘The Divine’ stepped in and sent me where I needed to go. Put me where I needed to be to test me as I had never been tested before or since, to force me to discover who I really was and who I could be,.. to teach me, as it had been teaching me throughout my life thus far, with pain, learning to live at the school of hard knocks.
After the excitement of arriving in Papua New Guinea, a truly wild frontier, the reality quickly began to reveal itself. The humidity was overwhelming and when it rained that first night it really rained and I remember thinking that this was not what I had expected. The afternoon of that first day we were again briefed on our first day going into the jungle, pace yourself, keep hydrated, rest as often as you need, don’t worry if you fall behind, you will not be left alone. So it was with all this good advice that we rose the next morning to begin our adventure.
The first day was horrendous and we were only in the foothills. The heat, the climbing going up for what seemed hours then the going down that was only marginally better than going up, crossing the rivers was a blessed relief and fun in a frightening sort of way.
Day two was more of the same but worse, as we climbed and climbed, higher and higher, the heat and humidity was just bearable but was taking its toll on all but it was deadly on some of us and I was beginning to suffer badly. The pack, which weighed somewhere about twenty to twenty four kilos, was becoming my worst nightmare.
Day three I hardly remember as I was in so much pain.
Day four was a searing blur of physical and mental torment, I had begun to wander in my mind and I was in serious trouble. It was that night that broke me in mind, body and spirit.
Day five I was unable to continue. But I knew that somehow I had to. I was, with others, rested that day and was flown from one ridge to the next. Day six I picked up that pack and continued, as I knew I had to. –