Oops, I seem to have skipped forward a way, so had best go back to the beginning of the trail!
We arrived at Kokoda at about 3pm so decided we'd do the short trek up to Hoi village (rather than the planned overnight at Deniki Village). After all, it was just our first day!
From the beginning. Me, Lisa and my sister Debby with Kiplin, Clark and David, our personal porters and great blokes
Kokoda Trail map.
We started at the very right of this map ... Kokoda Village. There is actually a funny story about the name of the trail. Some argue "trail" is the correct term and others argue "track" is more Aussie than the Yankee "trail" (The American path was actually 50km or so to the east of the Kokoda Trail and is known as the Kapa Kapa Track or trail which funny enough is also not correct as it is actually the Gabba Gabba Track or colloquially the Ghost Mountain Track and is said to be the Kokoda Trail on steroi_s, so I really doubt I'll ever be doing that one)!
Officially, the name is Kokoda Trail but I often use either, so if I inadvertently use track rather than trail, please forgive me!
When this trek was first planned, it was decided we'd do the trek in the "easy" direction as when you look at the elevation map above, from Kokoda up to Mt Bellamy is a lovely casual uphill gradient (mostly) designed perfectly to ease us into the walk, whereas the reverse direction has many more shorter, but far steeper pinches. The truth is, there is no "easy" direction. It's fair to say the direction we chose was easier, but easy ... it wasn't!
The lik lik walk up to Hoi Village certainly gave us the idea this was to be no stroll in the park, however upon arrival in Hoi, we were greeted with a lovely quaint village in a very peaceful setting with a beautiful stream flowing through the middle. I immediately hit the stream to soak my feet and just rest on the bank and then went to discover our accommodation for the night!
Greg having a coffee beside the stream in Hoi.
Hoi Village
Our Hoi gest haus ... 5 rooms, complete privacy! Oh, except wall sheeting must have been an optional extra!
We had a great evening meal and as per Buna meals, our trek kitchen team washed all our dishes and cutlery before the meal and after the meal. We often offered to do this ourselves, but they wouldn't have a bar of it. It was a little embarrassing actually, to be pampered like royalty when those lads worked as hard as us (actually harder) on the track! Even more amazing was that our kitchen team chopped wood, made the fires morning, lunch and dinner, prepared the meals, washed up all utensils before and after each meal, packed them and carried them along with their own gear over the same gruelling tracks as we walked, wouldn't eat themselves until after we had finished, cleaned up the camp site and then basically ran to the next one to do it all again and they were all late teens or early twenties!
I struggle to get my kids of a similar vintage, out of bed in the morning!
The next day, following a nice breakfast, we headed off about 7am for the first full day's walk ... all uphill!
I very quickly learned I hate uphill. I found muscles I never knew existed ... in the most painful of ways. I'd never really given my bum much thought, but I did within the first few hours of walking 'cause I found muscles that were threatening to go out on strike. Happily, my muscles were thoughtful and they'd take turns, one minute my bum would be caning, next my calves then around the back of my shins, then behind my knees, oh I forgot my back and ... seemed all my high altitude highlands training counted for little!
Hoi to Deniki Village.
). Buying those items provides good money into the villages, helps very weary trekkers recover and doesn't generate waste ... even the cans are recycled by the villagers selling the scrap aluminium!
). The outcome was that we were all about 3" taller due to the mud stuck to the bottom of our boots and to really add some fun into the mix, most of the mud was damn slippery clay! I sort of put my downhill preference down to me learning to ski on ice. I still prefer hard snow over powder and I reckon that set me up OK for dealing with the "skating" down these tracks. Of course there is another alternative ... pure luck!
