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RE: Showcase-Sunday: Prequel to my Kokoda trek
Howdy sir galenkp! What a fantastic topic to cover. Most of us have no idea this even took place so it's important to get the story out there. Did you do this trek by yourself?
The Trail is obscure...It's not a path. It meanders around, is almost non-existent in places, traverse creeks and rivers and through dense jungle. At times there is no path to follow at all, we'd simply walk along a creek, thigh-deep in water and then pop out at some nondescript point and resume the trek upwards.
The trekking group was guided by a Kokoda local and was supported by carriers/porters who would go on ahead and set up camp, or haul packs too heavy for trekkers to carry if required.
The ancestors of these porters did the same back in the war hauling injured and the materiel of war up and down the Trail. The did so for both sides too, depending on who payed the money, but the Japanese were brutal in the treatment of them and so they didn't work very well for the Japanese.
These porters love Australians and are polite, friendly and respectful. I made friends with my porter, ate with him, slept under the stars with him and his mates, and when we got rained in up at Kokoda met their families and spent days with them, living village life (no electricity, no water). Good times.
There were several trekkers, so no, I was not alone. Whilst trekking though I would see no one, hear no one...It was a solitary trek mostly, alone with the deep history, emotions, physical and emotional strain and the jungle. They were there, sometimes only 100m ahead, but the nature of the jungle is such that one couldn't hear or see them. It was disquieting.
I write about it in the subsequent posts so you will have to read them if you want to know more otherwise I'm writing it twice and I'm not inclined to do so. No time.
Very interesting sir galenkp! No of course I don't need more information here in comments since you wrote posts about it.