Story
When.
03 July 2010.
The Reason.
Simple really, I just wanted to do my bit to help those that have put their lives on the line for us. My chosen charity is Help for Heroes, anyone who has heard of them will be aware of the great work they do in raising money to assist our wounded service personnel. If you want to find out more about the work they do, visit their website www.helpforheroes.org.uk.
The Kokoda Trail.
Covering 96 kilometres of pristine rainforest, the track covers arguably some of the most rugged and wild jungle in the world. It is a demanding endeavour with, in excess of, 10,000 metres of uphill climbs, which are near vertical at times, on a single-file foot track through the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The track is the most famous in PNG and is renowned as the location of the World War II battle between Japanese and Australian forces in 1942. The temperature's on the track range from 24-28 degrees under the canopy and up to 32 degrees out in the open areas, all with near 100 percent humidity. The trek takes around 9 days with an average of 7-8 hours walking per day. This done with a bergen on my back with a weight of around 20-24kgs (about the weight of your average holiday suitcase). At night we will be camping in jungle camps and, for a couple of nights, in village camp sites along the track, these are very basic at best. Rivers are used for the shower and washing facilities or in some villages a simple water pipe is used to flow the water onto the trekker for washing. To put into some context the difficulty of the conditions and terrain, after 9 days on the track the return flight from Kokoda to Port Moresby takes around 35 minutes!
The Track today, a discription by one of the guys from the Trek organisers.
The Kokoda Track is a native walking path which meanders from the swampy north coast of Papua New Guinea around the towns of Buna and Gona, through Kokoda and on to Port Moresby on the country's southern coast. In doing so it passes over the Owen Stanley Mountain Range, 'the Rockies of the Pacific', which split the country east-west. The Owen Stanley’s are a wickedly intricate web of razorback ridges and valleys covered by barely penetrable rainforest and kunai grass. They rise and fall like shark’s teeth up to 2500m and back down again.
It takes around ten hours of walking, climbing, clambering, slipping and skidding to travel from the township of Kokoda to the Isurava battlefield. Think...10 hours on a StairMaster exercise machine, most of the time in a steam room. During the tropical downpours which drench the land every afternoon, walking the terrain is like climbing under a fireman's hose. The climbing is relentless, bringing searing pain to thigh muscles, but descending is far worse. It results in what the Diggers called 'laughing knees' - an uncontrollable shaking brought about by overuse of the quads in unfamiliar fashion, a condition exacerbated by constant slipping in the wet. The rain in the tropics is unique. It is 'fat' rain. When you look at it through the clearing in the forest it seems to fall as constant straight lines rather than as drops. It completely changes the landscape. The ground turns to slush - heavy, cloying foul-smelling mud. As you climb, the root-stewn paths turn into slipways, then watercourses, then mini waterfalls. The creeks rage and roar and the bigger ones transform into major obstacles.
When the rain eases, the heat kicks in and the humidity becomes almost unbearable - a smothering pressure cooker. When walking through the periodic fields of kunai grass, which grow taller than a man, the rising heat hits like a sledgehammer. People have been known to faint when first exposed to this merciless steambath. And this is just a tiny portion of what we know as the Kokoda Track. The country around Isurava is just about as bad as it gets but there are steeper and more sustained climbs along its tortuous route.
(Patrick Lindsay, The Spirit of Kokoda)
Day 1
Owers Corner - Good Water Camp/Dump 66
Approx 4 hrs - Ascent 50 metres Descent 315 metres
Day 2
Good Water Camp - Ioribaiwa
Approx 8 hrs - Ascent 660 metres Descent 550 metres
Day 3
Ioribaiwa - Naora Village
Approx 9 hrs - Ascent 1117 metres Descent 953 Metres
Day 4
Naora Village - Menari Village
Approx 5 hrs - Ascent 385 metres Descent 330 metres
Day 5
Menari Village - Efogi Villiage
Approx 7 hrs - Ascent 960 metres Descent 460 metres
Day 6
Efogi Village - Mount Bellamy
Approx 9 hrs - Ascent 900 metres Descent 300 metres
Day 7
Mount Bellamy - Iora Creek
Approx 9 hrs - Ascent 860 metres Descent 1335 metres
Day 8
Iora Creek - Isurava
Approx 5 hrs Ascent 375 metres Descent 482 metres
Day 9
Isurava - Kokoda
Approx 7 hrs Ascent 57 metres Descent 1025 metres
Day 10
Flight back Kokoda - Port Moresby
Approx 35 mins
My Bit.
I am an average 41 year old bloke, smoke too much and have an unhealthy addiction to coffee. Although I am relatively fit, I am in no way presently fit enough for this. I am in no way a full time adventurer, I have the same 'life stresses' and commitments as any other average family bloke. I have started training for the trek, my job in an off airport car park near Gatwick allows me to trot around for 12 hours of a working day. I cycle to and from work which totals 12 miles a day. Any spare time and as any with family will know there is little of that, is now taken with training for the trek and raising money for it. When I was looking for something to do to raise money for Help for Heroes I decided I did not want to do something too easy. Anyone who knows me would agree that I have never done anything the easy way, that would be boring! The idea of a little walk through a hot, humid jungle across mountains with a suitcase on my back seemed to sound like a bit of a giggle so here we are finding muscle I have not seen in 20 years.
I've put a target total of £5,000 on this page as I want to raise as much money as is possible for this worthy cause. Any amount however would, I am sure, be gratefully received. All money donated will go directly to Help for Heroes as I am paying for all costs of the trek, I am hopeful that I can raise corporate sponsorship to help with this. All the equipment I need to purchase will come from my pocket (unless there are any kit suppliers out there who can help). If you are donating and are a UK tax payer, please remember to tick the gift aid box, it amounts to free money from the taxman, and there is little opportunity to get that in life.
I have set up both a Hotmail and Facebook account, on which I will be posting regular updates on progress. Feel free to post questions and messages on them.
Joycedoeskokoda Andy
joycedoeskokoda@hotmail.com
Thank you in advance for your support.