Trek Itinerary
Our Adventure Kokoda Campaign Trek Itinerary includes all the significent battlesites, fire-support bases and logistic areas along the original wartime trail. We allow 10 days for the journey to ensure our trekkers obtain full benefit from their Kokoda experience. |
Kokoda Campaign Trek Itinerary
Day 1
Check-in at departure airport for your flight to Port Moresby as per your itinerary.
You will be met at Jacksons International airport by Adventure Kokoda staff who will accompany you to the Sogeri Lodge and check you in. You will then receive your backpacks/daypacks. Your trek leader will assist with 'fitting' your backpack and gear for the trek.
Our PNG
staff will then give you a brief lesson in Pidgin English to assist you with basic greetings and questions for villagers along the trail.
Your Australian trek leader will provide a safety briefing and provide an insight into the Koiari/Orokaiva cultures along the track. After dinner he will brief you on the strategic situation in New Guinea in 1942 and an overview of the Kokoda campaign.
Day 2
Fly to Kokoda on an Adventure Kokoda charter flight. You will meet your PNG trek guides andcarriers at the Kokoda airfield then trek to the Kokoda plateau for an inspection of the monuments, memorials,the Kokoda WarMuseum and the Australian defensive position on the Kokoda plateau where the gallant 39th Militia Battalion first met the Japanese army on 27 July 1942.
Your trek leader will give a battlesite briefing which will set the scene for the remainder of your trek. Follow the footsteps of the diggers through the old rubber plantation to Kovello village for a traditional 'fuzzy-wuzzy angel - sing-sing' welcome - trek onto your campsite at the village of Hoi.
Day 3
Begin the climb over the awesome Owen Stanley Range. We leave the eco-track and follow the signal wire along the original wartime track to Deniki where the first battle after the Australian withdrawal from Kokoda took place.
This part of the trek is pretty much as it was in 1942 as we are the only trekking company to use it - it was mapped by Charlie Lynn with the local landowners in January 2010. Old army signal wire lies in the scrub beside the track, insulaters are still on many of the trees, we see our first weapon pits and an Australian snipers position.
We climb through the jungle to the Isurava battlesite which was re-discovered by Charlie Lynn in 1995 after a search with old army maps and a modern GPS.
The Australian government has since built a solemn memorial on the site which was opened by PNG's Grand Chief and Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare and Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, on the 60th anniversary of the battle for Isurava in August 2002. Camp at the battlesite.
Day 4
We conduct a Dawn Service at Isurava. Our PNG guides and carriers are involved in the service and sing moving songs in their local language. 
The trek leader then provides a detailed historical account of the epic battle from both a strategic and tactical viewpoint.
We then inspect the area where Private Bruce Kingsbury was killed - he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross - the highest award for bravery in the Commonwealth and the first to ever be awarded on Australian territory.
After breakfast we trek to the 'ground of tactical importance' at the top of the battlesite position. You will receive another briefing by trek leader. After this there is a steep descent to Rear Creek 
then trek to the rock where Regimental Doctors operated on wounded soldiers as they tried to make their escape from the area.
Our trek continues through the old village site of Alola then continue to the new village for morning tea. We then leave the eco-track again and trek down into the Yodda Valley to a couple of rugged crossings at Eora Creek. After a wilderness lunch follow a steep bush-track to a spectacular waterfall below Abuari village. Continue the climb to your campsite in the village on the eastern side of the range which was defended by the 53rd Militia Battalion and 2/16th AIF Battalion in August 1942.
Whilst the traverse is rugged and difficult the rewards of 
camping in a more traditional village 'off the beaten track' are well worth the effort. It is a significant historical area because the Japanese breakthrough in this area placed the defensive position at Isurava in jeopardy and was a major consideration in the decision to begin a fighting withdrawal that was to last until the troops reached Brigade Hill.
The Orokaiva in Abuari are shy but most hospitable in their welcome to ourgroups. The feast they prepare is one of the highlights of the trek. They are wonderful hosts and we spend a most enjoyable night at our campsite in their village.
Day 5
After our morning briefing we follow 'Japs Track' down the range to Eora Creek. This is still 'off the beaten track' and gives trekkers a good feel for the challenge facing our diggers during this phase of the campaign. It is a spectacular section of the track with breathtaking views across the Yodda Valley to the Western ranges.
Eora Creek was a pivotal battlesite during both the withdrawal inAugust/September 1942 and later during the advance in October.
The 2/14th and 2/16th Battalions fought heroically to buy time for our wounded diggers to make their
way back up the mountain to their rear. Some could not make it because of their wounds and were given morphine and a rifle! The situation was so desperate they had to be abandoned. A detailed briefing on the situation that existed in 1942 is given on this piece of sacred ground.
During the advance a few months later the Australians took four days to fight their way across the creek and capture the high ground occupied by the Japanese. This was the first time the Australians encountered any Japanese resistance since they were ordered to withdraw from Ioriabaiwa Ridge. The Japanese were fanatical - and they were starving. They were ordered to fight to the death for their Emperor. The desperation was such they cannibalised those who were killed. All the horrors of jungle war were evident in this battle. Your trek leader will provide a detailed briefing on the battle which includes an inspection of the Japanese position which still has live ammunition and foxholes overlooking the Australian position.
We then trek up a steep ridge that was fiercely defended by the Australians during their fighting withdrawal - the weapon pits they fought from remain as a haunting reminder of their sacrifice. You trek leader will provide
a battlesite briefing on a delaying defensive position rediscovered by Charlie Lynn in 1993.
The track descends down to a wildnerness campsite on on the banks of the raging Eora Creek at Templeton's Crossing.
Day 6
We leave the congested eco-track and follow the wartime track taken by the 39th Infantry Battalion during their advance to Kokoda in July 1942. The nature of the terrain through almost impenetrable jungle gives us a feel for the difficulties the Australians had in dislodging the Japanese defenders from the area in October 1942.
We continue our climb in the vicinity of Mt Bellamy and reach the highest point of our trek.The area that takes us about a day to trek through took the Australians 13 days to fight through in October 1942. It was a bloody campaign involving hand-to-hand combat and courageous bayonet charges. Because the Japanese had been ordered to die for their Emporer they had to be killed in well camoflaged weapon pits. Many an Australian forward scout lost his life in the search for these pits.
We cross the main eco-track south of the Kokoda Gap and pick up the Bert Kienzle track that takes us to the 
edge of Lake Myola. Captain Bert Kienzle was a plantation owner from Kokoda. He, along with another Australian, David Marsh, organised PNG carriers (later to be knows as 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy Angels' to delivers supplies to our troops and help evacuate our wounded.
Your trek leader will provide a detailed briefing on the logistic aspects of the Kokoda campaign and the significance of Lake Myola during the advance and withdrawal phases of the Kokoda campaign.
Trek to your campsite at 'Bombers Camp'.
Day 7
Optional trek across the lake to the downed US P40 Kittyhawk aircraft then continue across the lake to connect to the track leading to Lake Myola 2 - the main fire support base for the protection of the logistic units at Myola 1 - inspect an abandoned Australian mortar position which contains live mortars and grenades. This position was discovered by Charlie Lynn in 2006 and is a significant site because of the protection it afforded the main logistic base at Myola 1. Care should be exercised as most of the grenades are live and unstable. Your trek leader will provide a detailed battlesite briefing at the site. Continue your trek through the moss forest to Tovovo lookout over the Efogi 
valley - spectacular views over Naduri, Kagi, Efogi and Brigade Hill - which is the most populated area of the track. Your trek leader will provide a detailed briefing at the mortar position.
Continue to Naduri Village - meet Ovoru Indiki, one of the few surviving 'fuzzy-wuzzy angels'. Ovoru was in Port Moresby when the Japanese first bombed the city. He did not understand what was going on and he fled to the bush in fear. Over the next couple of days Ovoru made his way back to his village - only moving at night because of fear. He told his people what had happened and they began to make arrangements to 'go bush'. Lieutenant Bert Kniezle of the Australian New Guinea Administrative
Unit eventually came tothe village and enlisted Ovoru and the other men inthe village to help the Australians. Ovoru then spent the next three months carrying supplies forward to our troops and carrying our wounded backacross the track. It is a great honour to meet the few remaining carriers such as Ovoru during the trek.
Your trek leader will provide a detailed briefing on the history of the wartime carriers.
Trek to Kagi village - the forming-up place for the Japanese attack on Brigade Hill - 6000 fanatical Japanes soldiers prepared to attack 1000 Australian defenders in what was to be the biggest battle of the Kokoda campaign - the Japanese referred to it as the 'battle of the Owen Stanley Range' - the Australians refer to it as the 'battle 
for Brigade Hill' - follow the wartime track to Efoge Creek then climb to our campsite at Efogi village
Day 8
Pick up the wartime track and climb to Mission Ridge which became known as 'Butcher's Ridge' because of the carnage that occurred during the battle of Brigade Hill on 7 September 1942.
Inspect the defensive position held by the 2/27th Battalion - continue to the crest of Brigade Hill - inspect positions held by the 2/14th and 2/16th Battalions during the battle of Brigade Hill. Inspect a former Australian gravesite - a haunting reminder of the war.
Your trek leader will provide a detailed battlesite briefing and service on the area of the gravesite. This site was discovered in April 1992 when the landowner, Siosi Liomi, led Charlie Lynn to a 'special place' that had been reclaimed by the jungle over the previous 50 years. The site was cleared and the gravesites were revealed. It was a significant discovery and is now one of the most visited sites on the track.
Follow the wartime track down across down to Loni village on the original Kokoda Trail. Continue down to Vabuyavi River then climb to Menari village. This is where Lieutenant Colonel
Ralph Honner conducted his first battalion parade with his 'ragged bloody heroes' of the 39th Battalion after the battle of Isurava. Wartime photographer, Damien Parer, captured the parade which is one of the defining photos of the campaign.
Climb the Ladavi Saddle and descend to our campsite on the pristine Aguologo River.
Day 9
Follow track to the Nauro swamp area -cross the Brown River - climb to the campsite at the village of Nauro. The village of Nauro has only recently been moved to the current location on the Maguli Range. It was previously on the Nauro River with a good 
airfield but some say fear of sorcery caused the villagers to move up the mountain.
Climb the mighty Maguli Range to the top at Mogolonumu - follow track south - inspect Japanese delaying defensive position with weapon pits and communication trenches. Your trek leader will give a briefing at this point - continue down to your campsite on Ofi Creek
Day 10
Steep climb up Ioribaiwa Ridge - battlesite briefing at the point where the Japanese were finally stopped - inspect weapon pits on the position then leave the eco-track and follow the wartime track down to Matama Creek. Ffollow the creek to the base of Imita Ridge
then climb to Imita Gap. The Australians were ordered that there was to be no withdrawal past Imita Ridge and they were die there if necessary - a very easy decision for an armchair strategist in faraway Brisbane to give!
Climb Imita Ridge to the gap. Your trek leader will provide a battlesite briefing on the defensive position established at Imita Ridge.
Leave the eco-tourist track and inspect the position along the rockface to the east and climb to the eastern edge of the perimeter. Follow the wartime track to the South-West via the 'golden staircase'. This was re-discovered by Charlie Lynn on a special reconnaisance with local landowners in November 2007. This section of the track 
has massive rock formations not seen anywhere else along the track.
Proceed to 'Charlie's Camp 'that was established during the reconnaisance in search of the 'golden staircase in 2007..
Day 11
Continue on the original wartime track to the abandoned village site of Uberi and reconnect with the eco-tourist track. Wade across the Goldie River and climb to Owers Corner. Your trek leader will conduct a battlesite briefing over a well-earned cold beer and fresh sandwiches. Board vehicles for a visit to Bomana War Cemetery.
Bomana War Cemetery 
During the 1940s our servicemen who were killed in action in New Guinea were concentrated in three major war cemeteries at Port Moresby (Bomana), at Rabaul (Bita Paka), and at Lae.
Those who died fighting in Papua and Bougainville are buried in the Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery. Among the 3280 burials are the remains of 700 unidentified servicemen including those of 438 British Royal Artillerymen, prisoners of the Japanese from Singapore who died in captivity in the Solomon Islands.
Bomana lies 19 kilometres north of Port Moresby. It was started in 1942 by the Australian Army and is the 
only one of the Papua New Guinea cemeteries to contain white marble headstones and a Stone of Remembrance.
Simple wrought iron gates open to a grassed forecourt inclosed by a bank of colourful tropical shrubs and trees. A short flight of steps rises from the forecourt to the Stone of Remembrance; beyond, on gently rising ground, lie the graves, and above them, dominating the setting, rises the cross of sacrifice.
A rotunda of cylindrical pillars stands on a hill above and behind the cemetery. This is the Memorial to the Missing, which commemorates the men of the Australian Army (including Papua and New Guinea local forces), the Australian Merchant Navy, and the Royal Australian Air Force who lost their lives and have no known grave. 
Click here for a list names on the honour roll at Bomana.
Check back into your hotel - presentation dinner in the evening.
Day 12
Half day tour of Port Moresby* including Koki Markets, Ela Beach, downtown CBD, National Parliament, National Museum, and PNG Art warehouse which contains the largest collection of artifacts in the country. Check in for flight from Port Moresby to Brisbane and Sydney.
Military History
The Kokoda campaign featured some of the most desperate land battles ever fought in defence of Australia during the Pacific war. Battle honours featuring the names Kokoda, Deniki, Isurava, Brigade Hil, Myola, Menari, Ioribaiwa Ridge, Imita Ridge, Templeton's Crossing and Eora Creek are emblazoned over unit banners on our annual Anzac Day marches.
The historical/battlefield aspects of the campaign are a major feature of Adventure Kokoda treks. Charlie Lynn, a Vietnam Veteran and former army major with 21 years service, has conducted leadership and survival training courses in remote areas of Australia and has more than 50 treks over the Trail since 1991. He is arguably the most experienced Kokoda trek leader on the Trail today.
Culture
Papua New Guinea is one of the world's last adventures - it has been referred to as a 'Parliament of the Thousand Tribes', a' Land of a Thousand Cultures' and the 'Land of the Unexpected'. More than 750 languages have been identified on the rugged tropical island. The people who live along the Kokoda Trail are Koiari and Orokaiva - sons and grandsons of the famous 'fuzzy-wuzzy angels'. Our guides and porters come from these villages.
Charlie Lynn has established a special relationship with these people over the past 18 years. During this time he has delivered sporting equipment to all villages along the track, donated significant quantities of school supplies to village schools, sponsored university students to conduct research on learning methods, assisted in bringing a young village child to Australia for major surgery, evacuated injured villagers to Port Moresby for urgent treatment and established the Network Kokoda Foundation.
As a result of this relationship he has been made an 'honourary chief of the Orokaiva people' - his groups are warmly welcomed into each village and presented with tropical fruits, local vegetables and' sing-sings'.
Marion Frith of the Canberra Times captures the feeling in an article she wrote in 1992:
"That afternoon we reach our nirvana - the village of Naduri. It is the home of our guides and we arrive to a hero's welcome. Les leads us triumphantly in and we are met by village elders - the original wartime "fuzzy-wuzzy angels" who carried the injured diggers out against all odds down dangerous narrow mountain tracks. A feast of food and flowers is laid out for us: mandarins, sugarcane, baked and steamed taro, pumpkin tops, potatoes, spinach.
"We fall quiet as these old men stand tall and proud. Charlie seizes the moment, the women and children are banked up around, and in a gesture that cuts across cultures and through language barriers he recites the poem that immortalised these angels. The old men beam, and our army of trekkers wipe away tears.
"It is as if we have arrived. Somewhere, anywhere. Our guides sit with us, their families join us, and the village and its people become imprinted in our hearts. Another woman and I join the evening church service and are entranced as the pastor, his face illuminated by a hurricane lamp, recites the prayers in pidgin and the children's voices rise in harmony so sweet we never want it to end.
" We are silent as we get up form the rough-hewn pew. At that moment we have experienced life at its most perfect, superb in its simplicity, and suddenly we realise that the walk was worth it, if only to find this. Peace and joy are tangible, if fleeting, qualities and we know that where we are going to, where we have come from, we will probably never find it again. We want to seal the village in barbed wire and never let the world touch it".
Environment
Osmar White, in his book 'Parliament of a Thousand Tribes' described the terrain:
"New Guinea is young country born in comparatively recent times as a result of a gigantic wrinkling of the earth's crust which buckled and smashed the bed rocks of ancient, vanished oceans and piled them on top of each other in a series of central ranges, of which the highest peaks rise more than 16,000 feet above sea level. These mountains were formed in much the same way as the Himalayas and the Andes. The ranges are not continuous. They are closely spaced, parallel cordilleras running mainly from north-west to south-east and together they form the backbone of the 'dragon' all the way from its thin neck in West Irian to its stumpy tail in Australian New Guinea."
According to the former chief botanist of the Port Moresby Botanic Gardens, Mr Justin Tschenko, who accompanied one of Charlie Lynn's treks, there are more varieties of orchids along the Kokoda Trail than anywhere else in the world. Add to this an endless variety of palms trees, fern colonies, moss colonies, towering trees with giant buttress roots, spectacular waterfalls, crystal clear mountain creeks and rolling mountain ranges as far as the eye can see and one can only begin to imagine the awesome beauty of the remote Owen Stanley Ranges.
Today it is hard to imagine this beautiful environment was the scene of one of the most desperate military campaigns fought in the South West Pacific. During these desperate days the Trail was describes thus by Sir Kingsley Norris:
"Imagine an area of approximately one hundred miles long. Crumple and fold this into a series of ridges, each rising higher and higher until seven thousand feet is reached, then declining in ridges to three thousand feet. Cover this thickly with jungle, short trees and tall trees, tangled with great, entwining savage vines. Through an oppression of this density, cut a little native track, two or three feet wide, up the ridges, over the spurs, round gorges and down across swiftly-flowing, happy mountain streams. Where the track clambers up the mountain sides, cut steps - big steps, little steps, steep steps - or clear the soil from the tree roots."
"Every few miles, bring the track through a small patch of sunlit kunai grass, or an old deserted native garden, and every seven or ten miles, build a group of dilapidated grass huts - as staging shelters - generally set in a foul, offensive clearing. Every now and then, leave beside the track dumps of discarded, putrifying food, occasional dead bodies and human foulings. In the morning, flicker the sunlight through the tall trees, flutter green and blue and purple and white butterflies lazily through the air, and hid birds of deep-throated song, or harsh cockatoos, in the foliage."
"About midday, and through the night, pour water over the forest, so that the steps become broken, and a continual yellow stream flows downwards, and the few level areas become pools and puddles of putrid black mud. In the high ridges above Myola, drip this water day and night over the track through a foetid forest grotesque with moss and glowing phosphorescent fungi. Such is the track which a prominent politician publicly described as 'being almost impassable for motor vehicles,' and such is the route for ten days to be covered from Ilolo to Deniki."
The Trail is probably centuries old - a main highway over the range - and in the usual manner of native pads, follows no established principles. It climbs the highest ridges, plunges down into the deepest ravines, and ascends the longest spurs. Between Uberi and the crest of the range, the track climbs more than 20,000 feet, although is has an altitude of 7,000 feet at its highest point. For every one thousand feet of altitude gained, the track drops six hundred feet to the foot of the next ascent.
Marion Frith describes the feeling at the end of her journey:
"As we clamber aboard the truck that has come to take us to the airport we have no doubt we are now invincible. We have plummeted to our worst lows and soared to our greatest heights. There is nothing physically or emotionally we cannot endure. We had set off as 34 individuals, half of us Australians and half of us Papuan villagers. When we part we are friends - an indivisible and strong unit for whom farewells come hard.
"If the spirit of Kokoda is strength in adversity, courage and mateship that spirit has been seeded in us all. We cross in a brief 20 minutes what has taken us eight gruelling days. And like all those who crossed it before us, who left their souls in the mud and the heat and the terrifying jungle, few will ever go back.
"Charlie, of course, is the exception. He will continue to pluck other ordinary humans from their comfortable lives and help them blossom into indefatigables, drawing on the greatness that lies largely unchallenged within us all. For the rest of us though, Kokoda will become just one humbling week in our lifetime: albeit our whole lifetimes lived in just one unforgettably humbling week".
