by Sally McMillan – The Sunday Telegraph
EXCRUCIATING, gruelling, torturous, gut-wrenching …
Trekking the Kokoda Trail is all of the above – and more.
The cloying jungle seeps into you, radiating waves of body heat. The air is fetid, the dense canopy enveloping – at night ink-black.
The following article was written by Mick Ryan of Killara and published in the Sydney Morning Herald on August 20, 2009:
‘Surely I cannot be the only one to come back from the Kokoda Track and wonder what all the fuss is about. I do not dispute the bravery and sacrifice of the fallen, or the significance of the battles fought there. My concern is with the modern trekkers and the mythology being cultivated about what a superhuman feat it is to walk from Owers Corner to Kokoda in peacetime. (more…)
There is an urgent need for a re-assessment of Australia’s role in the protection of our military heritage along the Kokoda Trail.
The construction of conventional buildings at Owers Corner and steel wire rope swing bridges across creeks at significant battlesites is akin to desecration of the most significant symbol of our involvement in New Guinea during the Pacific War. (more…)
The Kokoda Track Authority has advised of a plan to construct permanent swing bridges with cables and metal thread with constructed anchor points capable of taking up to 8 – 10 persons at Eora Creek Crossing, (Dump 1) Eora Creek, Efogi River (between Naduri and Efogi 2), Elomi Creek (between Efogi 1 and Efogi 2), Ofi Creek and Goldie River.
I do not know where these ‘plans’ are coming from but I do know they are being done without any consultation at all with the paying customer i.e. the trekker.
The research we have conducted with a significant number of people who have trekked with Adventure Kokoda over the past 18 years indicates that they want the track left alone. They want to trek in the footsteps of our diggers as they did it. They do not want boardwalks and bridges. (more…)
The recent construction of standard buildings with shiny silver iron roofs at Owers Corner illustrates the need for the Office of Australian War Graves to be involved in protecting our military heritage along the Kokoda Trail.
Owers Corner is a significant site. It is here that the road ends and the pilgrimage for thousands of Australians begins. It is where our diggers manhandled massive 25-pounder guns into position to provide heavy fire support to our troops on Imita Ridge for the first time in the Kokoda campaign. (more…)