Adventure Kokoda Blog

Adventure Kokoda continues to develop its philanthropic programs along the Kokoda Trail with the help of our trekkers.  In 2009 the company introduced a ‘Yumi Helpim Pikinini’ Program which saw 120 backpacks filled with educational, health and sporting gear delivered to village students.

Last year Adventure Kokoda was the only trekking company to pay our trek fees in full and in advance.  This year we were the only trekking company to respond to a call from the PNG Kokoda Track Authority to help sponsor a team of local rugby league players to train with the Gold Coast Titan Juniors on the Gold Coast.  (more…)

Despite the deaths Australians are drawn to take the challenge, writes Erik Jensen from the Sydney Morning Herald, who has just completed the RSL Services Clubs Kokoda Youth Challenge with Adventure Kokoda .

There are not the words in Koiari to ask about Kokoda’s spirit. That is an Australian construct, and a reasonably modern one: the sort that made Paul Keating bend down and kiss the earth at Kokoda in 1992, that wrote the word ”mateship” on the memorial built there a decade later, and sends almost 6000 Australians down the track each year. (more…)

Kokoda has claimed more Australian lives this year than Afghanistan.

During the last week two trekkers died on the Kokoda Trail, a couple more were evacuated by helicopter and fourteen went down with food poisoning.  Yesterday a campsite that took years to build at Ofi Creek was burned to the ground over an argument between two landowners. (more…)

The PNG Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) has announced a licensing system for trek operators. This is effectively an accreditation system – something we at Adventure Kokoda have been advocating for many years. We obviously support this initiative and commend the KTA for the work they have done to bring it about. (more…)

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.

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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…)

I first met Heath Ducker as a young lad on a leadership program I used to run for Youth Insearch. He always impressed me with his sincerity and his willingness to learn.

Youth Insearch was established by a remarkable couple, Ron and Judith Barr. Over the years more than 30,000 troubled teenagers have passed through their programs and put their lives back on course. Many have achieved outstanding success within their families, their communities and their professions. Heath Ducker’s story, which includes his struggle on Kokoda, is the story of Youth Insearch. (more…)

A recent proposal to mine part of the Kokoda Trail caused a public outcry that resulted in the Australian government entering into a ‘Joint Understanding’ with the PNG Government to protect the track and its environs from possible mining or logging activity.  Among the objectives is an agreement is to assist the PNG Government in undertaking a feasibility study for a possible World Heritage nomination. (more…)

Kokoda is a powerful word. According to the Orokaiva ‘koko’ means place of skulls – ‘da’ is village. The combination of syllables conjures up thoughts of ‘ adventure’ – mystery – danger’  in the minds of sedentary beings.

And no wonder.  Orokaiva warriors fearlessly resisted incursions into the Yodda valley when gold was discovered in the late 19th Century.  Many early explorers and missionaries ended up in village cooking pots as they were stalked in the remote jungle-clad mountain ranges. (more…)