Day 4 - Saturday 21 April, Isurava - Templeton's 2, I Think I'm in Avatar

Cute Isurava village kid

Blake had to give the thought of the day this morning.  He did a nice little spiel, and ended with 'keep smiling'. It was a phrase that was used repeatedly throughout the rest of the trip.

I'm feeling really good this morning, despite the person in next tent who snored so loudly I actually thought someone had come in to my tent and started snoring right in my ear.  My first task of the morning was a quick reconnoissance mission to discover who the snorer was.  Culprit identified, I'll be sleeping on the opposite side of the camp ground tonight. No wet tent last night. I never normally wake up through the night but I have been here.  We are pretty much sleeping on the ground. I go to sleep OK and then wake up later with my body aching where I am lying on it.  There are a lot of times during the night I wished I had some body fat. They have given us an inflatable pillow but I'm not feeling the love.  I ended up using my dry bag with clothes in it for a pillow.

Today we have a huge day.  We are walking to Isurava Memorial and will have a short service there. Then we need to push on and make up the hours we have lost. It will be a late one today.

We said goodbye to some of the kids in the village. They're pretty cute. Kerri is my buddy again today.

Avatar flowers

I cannot tell you how beautiful the walk to Isurava Memorial was. Through mountains covered in choko vines, crystal clear streams and misty valleys. It was this stretch of the track I had my 'I think I'm In Avatar' moment. I actually had to check I didn't have superpowers and look at myself to see if I had turned blue. If I had not of stepped on a flower on the ground I never would have looked up at this tree. I have never seen a flower like this, they were massive, beautiful and smelt gorgeous.  If this track was difficult I had not noticed because I was enjoying myself so much.

The team is starting to get on really well. There's lots of laughing and joking, it's really great having this much camaraderie so early on. Kerri and I get on really well also which is great.

A moment of reflection of Isurava Memorial

Isurava was the site of some of the most intense fighting in the Kokoda campaign.  The Isurava Memorial was built by the Australian Government in 2002 in remembrance of the Australians and Papua New Guineans who fought and died in the Kokoda Campaign.  The memorial is made up of four pillars made from black granite from South Australia and masoned in Melbourne. The pillars were then then flown to Port Moresby and choppered to the memorial site.  They are simply engraved with the words Courage, Endurance, Mateship, Sacrifice, words the Australian Army has built its foundations on.

Joey, Appo and Blake having a boys moment as
Isurava Memorial

The memorial is immediately adjacent  to the site where Private Bruce Kingsbury performed and act of valour for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

This really is an amazing place for a memorial, high up in the mountains above the clouds.

Glenn, Greg, Rob (Appo),
Jason and Brad

We had a moving service at Isurava.  Greg our trek leader, and Glenn trek leader for team one, gave a talk on some of the history of the the battles here.   He also filled us in on how brigades, platoons etc worked which helped a lot.

Unbelievably Glenn had brought an iPod and afterward played John Williamson's True Blue while we had some reflection time.  We all lost it about then obviously, if we hadn't already done so.

Right after the service a butterfly landed on my hand and stayed with me for quite some time, until we left the memorial, weird.  I was worried about what vermin I would encounter on this trip, so far I was fairly happy with a butterfly I have to say.

After another shout by Timmy we were off again. 

Not far from Isurava Memorial was Cons rock.  This rock was used by soldier Con Vapp as a makeshift operating table. I couldn't begin to imagine the suffering that went on here.

Con's Rock

Soon after leaving Isurava we had our first casualty, Kat from Team 1 went head over in a creek, cutting her eye on a rock and leaving a massive bump.  She was OK, and in typical Kat fashion dusted herself off and kept going. She must have taken one of Appo's harden up pills earlier in the day.

The rest of the day was long and very hard for some.  Greg told us when we arrived at Templeton's 2 camp that this was the longest day they had ever had on the track.  We left at about 0600 and arrived at about 1800. You can't just stop anywhere along the track to sleep, there are not really that many places to sleep, so you just have to keep going.   There's a creek here, big, fast flowing, clear and absolutely freezing.  We tried to wash here, it was so cold I got my breath back sometime the next morning. And I will add here that you can't take your clothes off when you wash for cultural reasons. Hard to wash yourself while your dressed.

Creek crossing, our trek leader Greg was very close to falling in here

What Joey at for lunch every day
Dry two minute noodles and
tuna. Feral.

We did no workout today :(.  After dinner we had another team meeting. It was funny. It was also shocking for me and nobody else.  Joey gave us the damage from his little black book.  Apparently I have 13 points. I don't get it. I have at least 11 more points than anyone else. I haven't said anything negative, didn't double cheek (falling over on both butt cheeks), I didn't even ask the time. The only thing I definitely did was look when Blake said 'there's a Koala'.  I'm thinking about asking Glenn if I can borrow the sat phone to call the bank to get an increase on my credit card limit.  I'm not going to fare well in this competition converting my points to Kina at the end of the track if I keep whatever it is I'm doing up. I think Joey just wants to have a big night at the end. To this day he still hasn't explained to me what I did!

The clothes I washed yesterday are still soaking, so tonight I decide to hang them up on the side of the main shelter by the fire.  This is the first time I've had to do this and it's kind of embarrassing hanging your undies and bra up in front of almost complete strangers. At least they have stuff hanging there as well.

Rest time

I went to sleep that night pondering my only disappointment of today, picking up other peoples rubbish they have left behind on the track.  There's not a lot but this place is pristine, it makes me wild. People are so lazy I hate it. It wasn't from our crew but obviously someone's pack was so heavy they couldn't handle carrying a little bit of plastic. From hereon in I did this every day.  The other team members also started doing it and I carried it.

Cool fungi, you see heaps of great stuff when you stop
and have a poke around

Day 3 - Friday 20 April Kokoda to Isurava

After eventually getting kind of dry, changed and opening the tent, the beauty of Kokoda Village snapped me out of  my rain infested misery immediately. It was a really beautiful day, still misty and foggy but lifting. My negative thoughts from earlier this morning disappeared completely after that.


After breakfast we took a short walk to the memorial located in Kokoda Village.  There is also a small museum here. 


In the museum I experienced my first Kokoda emotional 'thing'. Brad one of the guys in my team lives about 40 minutes away from me. I had only met him once before on the training trek in Brisbane.  We get on really well and I guess we became friends over the first couple of days. Brad spotted a picture on the wall, the man on the stretcher was Brad's great uncle.  The picture didn't upset me but Brads reaction to seeing it did. Unprepared for that one.

Brad standing beside the photo we found of his injured
great uncle

Mowing the grass machete style

Kokoda was basically where fighting against the Japanese began on the track.  The Japanese captured Kokoda on 28th July 1942 and advanced over the Owen Stanely Ranges toward Port Moresby. Australian soldiers delayed and finally halted the enemy at Oribawa Ridge on 26th September 1942.  The 7th division began an offensive which drove the enemy back through Kokoda to the coast around Buna, where Australian and American troops combined to destroy the entire Japanese force by 22 January 1943. 


A lot of people walk the track from the other direction, I'm glad we are doing it this way because it makes is much easier to follow the history of the battles.


After visiting the museum it was time to head off. The bad news was that because of our flight delays we have about 6 hours of trekking to catch up on.  We didn't really have much time to muck around this morning we had to get moving.  There are over twenty of us doing this trek.  We have split into two teams.  Team 1 are to head off first each day, and Team 2, my team, follow 20 minutes behind. The Teams meet briefly at rest stops and camp together each night. Our team leader is Greg and our medic is Rob, who I have known for a while now. Everyone seems to have come with someone, except for Sam and I, he's from NSW. He actually looks kind of familiar. 


Time for some quick photos then Team 1 set off.  We wait twenty minutes and begin our daily routine of stretching while we wait to leave. I knew Greg and Rob would make us do this.  I was so glad we were doing stretches. We are using a buddy system so have to pair up with someone each day and basically look after each other. Greg travels at the front and Rob at the back. Today I am buddied with Kerry.


We finally set off twenty minutes later. This started a pretty funny routine whenever we set off. Timmy one of the porters would shout out 'ARE YOU READY' and then Aussie Aussie Aussie, we would obviously shout Oi Oi Oi.

Team Kick Ass at the start of the track

The sun is out and it is fairly warm. Much like weather in Noosa so no big deal for me I love heat, but possibly a worry for those not used to humidity.  About 500 m into the walk my hips were aching. And I mean aching. Im not soft when it comes to pain but this was ridiculous.  I played around with my pack for ages thinking that I needed to shift the weight slightly. It didn't work.  Shortly after I had an epiphany. I was wearing skins for the first time ever and they were compressing my glutes way too much. The more I worked my muscles the tighter they became and the worse it got.  A quick adjustment and it felt better. I only wore them one more day after this, the same thing happened. They'll be getting lost in my floordrobe now that's for sure.

The Kokoda Valley, we started down the bottom
somewhere in the flat part.

A couple of hours in

Choko vines, this place is spectacular 

A couple of hours in, a couple of the girls were having trouble already.  One was sick before we even started so she was finding it pretty tough. Another of the girls was just finding it difficult, she was carrying a heavy pack and was not acclimatised to the humidity.  Not to worry, Isaac one of the porters, who was already carrying someone else's pack, grabbed her pack and bicep curled it in his arm. He walked like that for the rest of the day. And held her hand the whole time. The porters are amazing! Their strength never ceased to amaze me.

Break and water refill time

We have a break every couple of hours. At lunchtime we get our new ration packs.  Good.  I eat so much and my food is nearly gone.  There's plenty of water around so its easy to drop the weight of your pack and just refill in one of the many creeks, a massive bonus.


Today has been hilly, rocky and absolutely beautiful.  Lots of tree roots and some small creek crossings, less than ankle height.  I think we have walked about 12 km today, I am not really sure. Today we passed a memorial plaque on the track where a trekker died in 2006. So close to the end of the track.  Pretty sad stuff. He was only 32.





We arrived at Isurava Village in the afternoon around 4, I think, not sure I don't wear at watch and definitely don't want one here. We are staying here tonight. We're barely even in the village when Greg tells us to drop our packs we were doing a workout, because we had only been using our legs.  The look on some of the team members' faces was priceless.  I think from memory we did pushups and V sits. Did some more stretching as well. So good.

Afterward we chatted with some of the local kids, some of us had brought some toys, books, pencils etc so we gave some of these to the them.  Later on I had a bit of a personal struggle about giving the kids toys (books and stuff are OK). They appreciated them but it also struck me that their lives were peaceful, happy and simple and did I really need to impose westernised materialistic items on them? They would have been better off with clothes which are more of a necessity and they clearly didn't have enough of, when I go back one day I'm going to take some instead.


We settle in to the camp and sort our stuff out before dark. I hung my sleeping bag up near the fire to dry and washed some clothes, well sort of anyway.  After dinner (mine is vegetarian tonight I'm spewing) we had a team meeting. Greg made one of the guys, Joey the 'Sheriff'. So Joey has to record any stupid things anyone does in a book and at the end of the trek each point is converted to a PNG kina and put over the bar. Greg also produced a pink dummy on some pretty ribbon, to be worn for an entire day by anyone who has the best dummy spit.  The other thing he wants us to do is take it in turns each morning to have a thought of the day and at night to talk about ourselves. Tonight the infighting and thievery over over condensed milk started. Also a lot of laughing going on. There are a few characters in our team that's for sure.


Anyway so the first day of trekking is done, I feel pretty happy, I didn't find it difficult at all and I'm feeling really strong. Apparently tomorrow is harder, both physically and emotionally. Greg said we have a lot of up uphill tomorrow.

Day 2 Thursday 19 April - The longest 72 km's of my life

So apparently our flight to Popondetta has been delayed. Island time is something you need to get used to immediately in this country. Nothing happens on time or quickly.  

The plan for Friday was to fly to Popondetta in the north of the country and then bus to Kokoda, arrive at about lunchtime and then trek for the rest of the day.  The flight is now not leaving until 1 pm so we have a few hours to spare. A bit of time to get to know the rest of the team, great people! 

The most expensive taxi ride in Port
Moresby, Kerrie, Blake,
Joey & I overlooking the harbour

What else to do in Moresby when you have time to spare, no personal armed guard and you don't do well in a razor wired compound? Find some blokes and go out anyway of course! Kerrie, my room mate from last night, Joey, Blake and I decided to catch a cab into Moresby for a look around (not a walk around). Tip 1. When catching a cab in Moresby don't think you're getting a good deal by staying off the meter. Tip 2. Cab drivers need repeated instructions. Cabbie was insistent on taking us to the Botanical Gardens, we had no time for that but had to repeat this at least 4 times. Then he told us again we were going to the Botanical Gardens. It takes quite a bit for me to get mad, he soon knew that I was.

Port Moresby Harbour is quite beautiful. I even spied a waterslide (that I'm sure had my name on it) going from a jetty into the gorgeous clear blue harbour. There was a bit of a discussion and it was decided I wasn't going anywhere, sensible really, but I'm still disappointed I missed it.

We eventually got back to the hotel then off to the airport.  Interesting. Flights were on island time and so was the security.  Don't know how many times the scanners went off when we walked through with no further checks. Island time, island security. At least I didn't have a pat down. During the flight we flew almost over the Track. Oh. Wow. Those mountains are pretty big. I was worried about my fitness before I left Australia, now I am really concerned.

Popondetta

The bus

After arriving at Popondetta Airport, we loaded onto our bus (truck with troop carrier type seats) and headed into Popondetta to grab some supplies.  Never in my life have I seen so much rubbish. Some people already know that I pick up rubbish all the time, every day where ever I am, and every single time I go to the beach, which is often. Wow. I could have been in this place forever.  And the people.  Have never seen so many people in one place just hanging around for no particular reason. It was a bit intimidating actually. 

Just another river crossing
PNG style

And so began our 72 km drive to Kokoda. Not far no, but long yes, 4 hours long.  Road was dirt almost the entire trip.  All the bridges washed away a couple of months ago. Every creek and river was so much fun.  I'm sure that every person we drove past had something loud but nice to say to us. We even had a flasher, a little kid all of about 6 who did a nude jig in the middle of the road after we drove past him.  A great bus trip and pretty funny. Also a good chance to get to know everyone a little better. Could have done with a few extra kg's of padding on my butt and about half a metre off my legs however.  I eventually realised I could hang off the bars on the top of the truck, even pumped out a few chinups. That  helped the leg stretching situation a bit. 4 hours is a long time for me to sit still.


We arrived in Kokoda well after nightfall. It was pouring with rain but fortunately still warm. Threw our gear in a tent and enjoyed our first dehydrated meal.  Here we experienced the toilets Kokoda Track style for the first time.  I'm not going to go into detail but let's just say trees were a much better option and I'm pretty good at climbing fences.


Off to bed. Really pouring now and was stinking hot in the tent. After tossing and turning for a while and feeling hot and uncomfortable I stripped off to cool off. When I woke up in the morning, there was water through my tent and everything was wet. Including me, sleeping bag, the whole lot. And I was cold. I knew the rain was heavy through the night so the tent leaking probably couldn't be helped, but I laid there for a while cold, wet, naked, hungry, tired and trying to suppress the thought that this could be a really crap trip, and then trying to snap myself out of it.

I'm Back - Day 1

I really don't know where to start. I left Port Moresby on Saturday to fly home. At the moment (Monday) I am a whole bag of mixed emotions, restless is probably the best word for summing up how I feel today. So so happy to see the family but missing Team Kick Ass and feeling strangely lonely, I can't describe it. People talk about Kokoda withdrawals, I think I have them. I think it's something to do with the hard work, the build up, forming a close team, the emotions experienced together, the sense of achievement at the end and then you go home.

It's going to take ages to update this blog, what I have seen and experienced over the past two weeks physically and especially emotionally is something that I am not sure I can describe very well in words.  In addition, on the very last day on the track my diary got wet. Of course it was in a dry bag but the last day/night was a pretty intense night of raining and flash flooding so it couldn't really be helped.  More about that later. 

I can only read some of my diary so some of this may get a little muddled as all the days and nights seem to blend into one. Anyway I will do my best.

I stayed with my friends Nikki and Trevor the night before (It was Nikki's birthday and mine the day before so that was pretty great). Nikki dropped me at the airport on the morning of the 18th April.  I had a bit of a struggle moment saying goodbye to her and had to blink extra fast and get out of the car ultra fast so she didn't see me getting upset.  She would have known exactly how I was feeling though she has known me for a long time, I was glad she was with me.

Our flight was delayed by several hours, but this was made better with a Kelly Slater sighting, vodka shot and a couple of coffees. Everyone was excited. It was good to have the extra time to get to know everyone.  Bags all checked in and then off through customs.  Much to my delight I was 'randomly' selected for an explosives check and pat down.  This is so not a random check. It happens all the time to me, I'm starting to think I'm on some alert list. You just have to make the most of pat downs when you get them I guess. And of course everyone thought it was hilarious and were cracking jokes about it for the rest of the trip.

Outside the hotel in Port Moresby

We eventually landed in Port Moresby and headed off to the hotel. I had been so excited I had forgotten about the civil unrest going on in PNG.  I have always known Port Moresby was one of the most dangerous cities in the world but I was not prepared for the armed guards and the razor wire.  Once safely inside we had a team briefing and sorted out our gear.  Then it was off to dinner and of course I couldn't pass up the chance to try a couple of local brews (just a couple, honestly).

We are all pretty tired so off to bed.  Through the night I could hear fighting. It was quite close.  I could hear the armed security guards running up and down outside my room.  I wasn't scared but I wasn't getting up to have a look either.  The next morning there was a massive hole in the side of our compound where people had tried to break in.  Only a couple of us heard this which was unbelievable.  In 3 short hours I had landed in a strange new world. 

Courage Endurance Mateship Sacrifice

So the 70th Anniversary Kokoda Track Campaign begins.  


I'm off in the morning. Excited, nervous, humbled and pumped.  See you at the end of April.


They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

5 sleeps to go

Only five sleeps to go. I woke up today feeling so nervous I thought I was going to get situation diarrhoea.  Had to draw on some inspiration to snap myself out of it. I am now officially in my 'rest phase'. I did my last workout yesterday morning while camping with my friend Louisa, 

We did some snatches with brooms because that's all we had, pushups, situps, pullups, rope climbing (well I didn't do much of that because it turns out that vines hanging from the rainforest over creeks are not the best climbing thing invented, not sure how Tarzan did it because it can end quite badly).  I am actually pretty sore from the workout. And scratched.  Did a very small walk as well and some creek crossings.

I woke up today thinking that I should just get up and repetitively smash a big hill somewhere but I do need to rest (a few people are hassling me to rest with reason) and no amount of work I do now will help. I rested this arvo and slept for 3 hours, so maybe I am  a bit tired after all!

Our trek leaves on 18th April and we are back on the 28th.  Our trek leader will be carrying a GPS tracking device, which will commence 19th April. A couple of times a day my facebook page will be updated with our progress on a map.  The map also provides some interesting information about our route, and what we will be seeing and experiencing.  If you don't have social media accounts you can use the below link.

Click here to view the trip

Next one of these will be from PNG

Two weeks and counting...

So I have decided that this will be my last training update before I go, otherwise this will just get too boring, I am after all doing the same things week after week.

Mt Cooroora

Mt Cooroora - contemplating whether
I should just slide down on my butt

I have increased my hiking over the past few weeks and tackled many hills and mountains. I swear I am walking more than Forrest Gump. Have done Mr Cooroora, which I love, you have to use hands to climb some parts of it.  Have also trained at Mt Coolum which is OK, not as challenging as Cooroora but great uneven surfaces in some places, I even decided to have a jog on this one once.  

Have also done Mt Coo-Tha in Brisbane. I was lucky to be able to get down there for a practice session with some others doing the same trek.  Was great to be able to do this and meet the trek leaders and some other members of the group.  I have had serious doubts over the past few weeks on quite a few occasions. Have I done enough training? have I prepared enough? am I mentally up to this? all that kind of stuff.  So this trek was great because I got to see how I was going compared to everyone else. I definitely felt better at the end of it.   I also used my walking stick for the first time.  Not sure I really needed it on this walk, although there were some horrid hills, but it was a good chance to try it out and I can definitely see the benefits in using it.

The Brisbane Mt Coo-Tha walk
I think I'm tree hugging. Way steeper
than it looks!

The other great thing about this trip was that I was able to stay in Brisbane the night before the walk with one of my best friends in the world Jayne. We have known each other since we were about 14 and were living in central NSW.  Somehow after all this time, and both of us living all over the country or overseas, we have ended up only 120 km apart.  She is moving to Kuala Lumpur soon and time was running out for us to see each other.  Jayne and I had dinner, managed a laugh and a cry and really could have very easily had a massive night. The self control was out in full force I'm telling you. Anyway we were up at 0430 and off, Jayne came with me which was just awesome! Now she wants to do Kokoda as well!

The lift, squeeze those glutes baby
Think of the macadamia's

Still been going to Crossfit but maybe not so much as I have been walking a lot.  Luckily some of the classes have been smashing our legs.  Hip Thrusts with the barbell are my new thing, I love them. Some pics below of the hip thrusting action. Excellent for you glutes.  I realise that one of the pictures below looks like I'm about to give birth and Madonna behind me is some type of birthing coach but it gives a good idea of the whole motion, and it's a little bit funny (it kind of feels like your giving birth too just quietly). 

Getting ready for the lift

The dreaded sled also materialised one Saturday morning.  Danny our trainer had headed to NZ for some training so Woogie, stand up paddle boarding legend, took our classes. If we thought we would get away with slacking off we were so so incredibly wrong. Seriously, Woogie must have secretly been in the SAS or something. Actually Woogie was extremely motivating, and boy did he push me.  

He made me do the sled pulls all up hill 6 times.  Supposedly at body weight, I started at 55kg which is about 7 kg's more than my body weight. About halfway through I realised I had been doing 65 kg because Woogie had slipped on another 10 kg plate. So now I am doing 17 kgs more than my weight, goodness knows how many runs I did that for. So apparently according to Woogie I am much more capable than I think I am, the best thing someone could have said to me that week. And I will be remembering that when I have a hard day on Kokoda. I was pretty knackered after, lying on the grass was nice.

Crossfit has been the best thing I have ever done for my fitness and wow it has helped with my preparation for this trek.

Have done a lot of other walks, mainly from my house up some big hills and then through the national park and back to the stairs for a few rounds of those. The let downs of the past couple of weeks were that I caught a cold, which I still have, and a really sore right hip that has developed over the past two weeks. It is apparently just muscular and I'm on to it and going to the physio. I have still found time to have some fun as well. Some good waves around, some nice pieces of road. Definitely not Kokoda training but keeping fit all the same.

I'm surprised there's nobody else
in this pic there has been so many
people in the water

Louisa and I having a paddle at 1st Point and
cacking ourselves about something

After this week my training will taper off (yay I'll be able to surf more) and I will give my muscles a chance to heal for the last week before I leave. Will just be doing some light walking.

All my gear is ready. Visa is ready.  I have a little mental reserve of stuff to think about when I need some motivation, things I have I picked up from some amazing people I have met. Pretty sure I will need to use these reserves somewhere along the way.

I think I am ready to go???? Geez this all seems to real now.