Day 6 – Kagi Village to Templeton’s Crossing Two

Breakfast each morning was Wheatbix for me with powered milk. Some mornings they did porridge, but I didn’t like that too much. That was it each morning. After a couple of days I found that I wasn’t looking for much to eat early each day. You would think you would be starving, but it just wasn’t like that.

This was supposed to be one of the hardest days on the track, we would climb 790 meters. We were going over Mt Bellamy the highest peak of the track 2190 meters. To my surprise I found it not to bad at all. It had its tough sections for sure same as every day, but not the constant hard climbs as before. The first hour was a steady walk along a gradual incline that was a path not steps and we were all able to stay tighter so it couldn’t have been too steep. We opened out to a flat clearing where Max pulled us up for a talk.

From here you could see where we had been for the past three days. Brigade Hill and Mission Ridge were in the distance and you could follow the ridges and pick out the gullies we had gone through to get to the villages. You could see all the villages on the hill tops and below us was a school made from what looked like army style long barracks buildings. They were built by the villagers. The Mums and kids all come there on Mondays and stay till Friday then go home for the weekends. Max said all the villagers come to this spot on Christmas Eve because the can see the lights of Port Moresby far away. We think he was stretching it a bit there but we let him have his fun. There was not doubt though how important Brigade hill was though in the war. It dominates this area so you can see why the Japs wanted it so bad. You could see the ridges where they encircled the Aussies to get them off the hill. Sight seeing over, it was time to push on.

From here the next major point was The Kokoda Gap. It was about two hours of steady climbing and this is where we first struck our wet ground. Due to the canopy of trees the ground doesn’t dry out very quickly and is always muddy under foot. Just made going a bit slower, you had to be careful underfoot.

At the Lake Myola turn off a group of us went down the sidetrack to where the America bomber crashed. It crashed into a crater that was already there and buried it self in the mud. The village people pushed sticks into the mud around the edges to stop the sides caving in over the years. There are lots of mangled bits piled up around the edges. As always there was a villager living on the site to look after things and have his photo taken with trekkers, so we did. He was an uncle of Max (another one??) so he arranged it for nothing. He was supposed to be a Fuzzy Wuzzy you just don’t know, old enough though. We moved on up and down the track. It was getting very muddy and slippery underfoot and after the last climb we came out on a small little plateau which was the Kokoda Gap. Nothing too spectacular, except it marked begin of the end.
 

From this point you could look down the valley to where Kokoda is. Still a long way to go but it was there. Over the edge of the gap, and it plunges down to the Eora creek and Templeton’s crossing No 1 for a cooked lunch. Sausages on damper rolls. They had sent Ruby and others ahead earlier to cook.
Ruby is the only female porter. She came on the team because Mary was with us. She did a wonderful job and stayed with Mary almost all the time when needing help. Mary was great on the uphill sections, but needed Ruby’s help on the down hill sections. Ruby’s husband Simmy was also on the trip with us. Ruby’s first time and Simmy’s seventh time. Simmy proved to be a great bar tender at the end of the track.

It was a long and steep decent and very tricky due to the wet and sleepy track. Milto wins the award for the best fall recovery at this point. Just in front of Viv and me he slipped in the mud and was coming down heavy and saw he was coming down on a six inch broken tree stump. He managed to roll to his side mid air missed the stump and landed on his back, with him on the ground on his backpack kicking around like a turtle. Great recovery no harm done.

After lunch we moved onto our night stop at Templeton’s 2 crossing. It was about an hour walk following the creek along going up and down the side of the ridge. About half way along Phillip our head guide pulls us up to tell us something. Years ago the tribes were all feuding but the mail had to be sent through, we are only talking back to the 50 and 60’s. This was a change over point for the tribes. They would leave the mail on the track hanging from a tree, who ever got there first and run of and hide in the trees, and wait for the others to come and collect there mail and when they were gone collect there mail and head off home. The mail must get through in every country.

It had been another long day about 7 or 8 hours, I’m not sure exactly. We all finished down at the creek at some stage for a swim and wash clothes. The water was very cold; we were brave men getting wet there.
We were still at 1850 meters so this was our highest camp. Harry to Max, “will it ran tonight Max” No rain 100% say Max. Five minutes later patter patters a little rain. Max to Harry quick as a wink, “Harry 99% no rain”
So Harry stayed out with tractor under a tarp the boys erected for them. This was also the night we all had a go at keeping the fire going, but it kept going out and smoking a lot. So Tassie and max came and showed us how to fix a fire in 30 seconds. We reckoned they set us up with damp wood in the first place. The camp won the award for best dunny. Very comfy green plastic pan, with northerly open aspect looking down the valley. Who needed a magazine?

Story written by Ian Bown of Forbes

For more pictures visit the Kokoda Gallery