THE KOKODA TRACK IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA – DAY TWO - THURSDAY 25 MAY 2023

VILLAGES: Isurava, Aloli, Abuari (View Only)

SITES: Isurava Battle Field, Callis (Surgeons) Rock, Aloli War Museum

DISTANCE: 11.3km

UPS & DOWNS: 986m + 465m = 1451m

ELEVATION CHANGE: 817m to 1410m

TREKKING TIME: 4hrs 32min

ELAPSED TIME: 9hrs

AVERAGE SPEED: 2.5km/h

 

What a great first night's sleep – deep, comfortable and warm except for Nick's snoring that soon replaced the sounds of crickets all around us. It was still dark when our trekking leader Ezra came around to wake us up at 4:30am. We all packed away our gear and met for breakfast at 5:30am. Our porters take care of everything including setting up and packing up our tents. Their packs weigh 15kg and we have a day pack with snacks, water and simple gifts for local children that weigh 3-6kg. It was very overcast and misty when we set off at 6:30am. The five kilometres to Isurava village involved constant ups and downs with lots of mud, rocks and roots since it had been raining the night before and this slows you down immensely. The residents of Isurava village had set up a stall and we feasted on the bananas and soft drinks it is here that I became the first injury statistic having walked through a barbed wire fence in my efforts to get to a hill to take a photo of the village. Our dedicated trekking medic quickly took care of me and patched up my leg but it wasn't deep and there was no pain - just a bit of blood. Isurava memorial was just another two kilometres away but it took us the better part of two hours to get there because it started to rain. Isurava memorial is extremely important and probably the most important site on the Kokoda track as it is the location of a four-day battle where the Australians desperately tried to hold off the Japanese advancing from Kokoda. Many Australians lost their lives here and there is a memorial with four pillars to commemorate the fallen and each pillar embodies the spirit of Kokoda being: mateship, endurance, courage and sacrifice. It is here that Private Bruce Kingsby bravely fought off Japanese on his own holding a Bren Mark II machine gun and cut a passage through the Japanese front line to save his battalion but sadly he was shot by a sniper as he made his way back for more ammunition. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery. Lucky for me, I was the first to the memorial and snapped up some footage before the rain came pouring down and settled in. We decided to bring lunch forward so that the rain could  pass and at around 2pm the rain lightened enough that we made our way back to the memorial and hour historian Gibson led a commemoration where Nick read a poem and Jacob read the Anzac Oath. The 90 minute walk to the village of a Aloli was slow and slippery due to the enormous amounts of mud and I thought - how on earth did the soldiers endure all of this with 28kg packs on their backs and many of them injured or sick !!! On the way we passed a place called Callis Rock (also known as Surgeons Rock) where the wounded Australian troops were treated on top of a large flat boulder. Next to this is a memorial to a soldier who sadly died on the operating table (rock). We were relieved to finally see the children of Alola who welcomed us and it was not long until we were showering and drying clothes by the fire. The weather lifted so I flew my crazy drone Ava over the village and into the valley. All the children of the village gathered around to see Ava. When Ava returned she had a little bit of battery left, so I put the goggles on all the kids and raced around with Ava in my hand to give them a sense of the flight experience and they simply laughed and shrieked with delight !!! Imagine that - a little village on the Kokoda Trail and the children there experience a drone for the very first time. Alola was the place where the Australians set up headquarters for the Isurava campaign. We visited a small but very effective museum in the town containing actual munitions found by the locals including rifles, mortars, shells and even Japanese helmets. The prize find was the Bren Machine gun used by Private Kingsbury. Dinner was rice and chicken curry with peas, which was excellent - washed down by loads of hot tea. After two more moving church hymns by our porters we settle down to sleep since we would be waking at 4:30am again and facing the steepest ascent of our journey towards the rim of Mount Bellamy.