- Kokoda Movie
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What to Expect
Helen Pitt, Qantas Magazine, January 2004:
"In 1992, I was the first of many journalists to accompany Charlie Lynn along the Track. For me, the Kokoda Trail is a metaphor for life - sometimes you've got to sink low into the valleys to appreciate the view from the mountains. Of all the trips I've taken, no souvenir or photograph will ever equal what I took away from Kokoda - the courage to face whatever peak or valley was put in front of me, just like an Australian or Japanese soldier, or a local villager."
Adventure Kokoda treks retrace the footsteps of t
he Diggers who fought in the Kokoda campaign. Treks are organised by Charlie Lynn who has trekked Kokoda 43 times. His treks have featured on numerous television documentaries and more recenlty on the Channel 9 Getaway program. Charlie has studied the campaign in great detail, is aware of the location of each significant battle site and knows the details of all the major battles. He has written a unique guide book and diary which is presented to each trekker at the briefing on the first night. Charlie has also developed a respectful relationship with the clan leaders and villagers along the track through his work in supporting their schools and health centres. They respond to his generosity by extending a very warm welcome to his groups and performing some wonderful 'sing-sings' for them.
Kokoda Battlefields
The Kokoda campaign featured some of the most desperate land battles ever 
fought in defence of Australia during the Pacific war. Battle honours featuring the names Kokoda, Deniki, Isurava, Brigade Hil, Myola, Menari, Ioribaiwa Ridge, Imita Ridge, Templeton's Crossing and Eora Creek are emblazoned over unit banners on our annual Anzac Day marches.
The historical/battlefield aspects of the campaign are a major feature of Adventure Kokoda treks. Charlie Lynn, a Vietnam Veteran and former army major with 21 years service, has conducted leadership and survival training courses in remote areas of Australia and has led 43 expeditions over the track since 1991. He is arguably the most experienced Kokoda trek leader on the track today.
Click here to see Charlie's Kokoda DVDs
Culture
Papua New Guinea is one of the world's last adventures - it has been referred 
to as a 'Parliament of the Thousand Tribes', a' Land of a Thousand Cultures' and the 'Land of the Unexpected'. More than 750 languages have been identified on the rugged tropical island. The people who live along the Kokoda Trail are Koiari and Orokaiva - sons and grandsons of the famous 'fuzzy-wuzzy angels'. Our guides and porters come from these villages.
Charlie Lynn has established a special relationship with these people over the past 14 years. During this time he has delivered sporting equipment to all villages along the Track, donated significant quantities of school supplies to village schools, sponsored university students to conduct research on learning methods, assisted in bringing a young village child to Australia for major surgery, evacuated injured villagers to Port Moresby for urgent treatment and established The Kokoda Track Foundation.
As a result of this relationship his groups are warmly welcomed into each village and presented with tropical fruits, local vegetables and sing-sings.
Marion Frith of the Canberra Times captures the feeling in an article she wrote in 1992:
"That afternoon we reach our nirvana - the village of Naduri. It is the home of our guides and we arrive to a hero's welcome. Les leads us triumphantly in and we are met by village elders - the original wartime "fuzzy-wuzzy angels" who carried the injured diggers out against all odds down dangerous narrow mountain tracks. A feast of food and flowers is laid out for us: mandarins, sugarcane, baked and steamed taro, pumpkin tops, potatoes, spinach.
"We fall quiet as these old men stand tall and proud. Charlie seizes the moment, the women and children are banked up around, and in a gesture that cuts across cultures and through language barriers he recites the poem that immortalised these angels. The old men beam, and our army of trekkers wipe away tears.
"It is as if we have arrived. Somewhere, anywhere. Our guides sit with us, their families join us, and the village and its people become imprinted in our hearts. Another woman and I join the evening church service and are entranced as the pastor, his face illuminated by a hurricane lamp, recites the prayers in pidgin and the children's voices rise in harmony so sweet we never want it to end.
" We are silent as we get up form the rough-hewn pew. At that moment we have experienced life at its most perfect, superb in its simplicity, and suddenly we realise that the walk was worth it, if only to find this. Peace and joy are tangible, if fleeting, qualities and we know that where we are going to, where we have come from, we will probably never find it again. We want to seal the village in barbed wire and never let the world touch it".
Environment
Osmar White, in his book 'Parliament of a Thousand Tribes' described the 
terrain:
"New Guinea is young country born in comparatively recent times as a result of a gigantic wrinkling of the earth's crust which buckled and smashed the bed rocks of ancient, vanished oceans and piled them on top of each other in a series of central ranges, of which the highest peaks rise more than 16,000 feet above sea level. These mountains were formed in much the same way as the Himalayas and the Andes. The ranges are not continuous. They are closely spaced, parallel cordilleras running mainly from north-west to south-east and together they form the backbone of the 'dragon' all the way from its thin neck in West Irian to its stumpy tail in Australian New Guinea."
According to the former chief botanist of the Port Moresby Botanic Gardens, Mr Justin Tschenko, who accompanied one of Charlie Lynn's treks, there are more varieties of orchids along the Kokoda Trail than anywhere else in the world. Add to this an endless variety of palms trees, fern colonies, moss colonies, towering trees with giant buttress roots, spectacular waterfalls, crystal clear mountain creeks and rolling mountain ranges as far as the eye can see and one can only begin to imagine the awesome beauty of the remote Owen Stanley Ranges.
Today it is hard to imagine this beautiful environment was the scene of one of the most desperate military campaigns fought in the South West Pacific. During these desperate days the Trail was describes thus by Sir Kingsley Norris:
"Imagine an area of approximately one hundred miles long. Crumple and fold this into a series of ridges, each rising higher and higher until seven thousand feet is reached, then declining in ridges to three thousand feet. Cover this thickly with jungle, short trees and tall trees, tangled with great, entwining savage vines. Through an oppression of this density, cut a little native track, two or three feet wide, up the ridges, over the spurs, round gorges and down across swiftly-flowing, happy mountain streams. Where the track clambers up the mountain sides, cut steps - big steps, little steps, steep steps - or clear the soil from the tree roots."
"Every few miles, bring the track through a small patch of sunlit kunai grass, or an old deserted native garden, and every seven or ten miles, build a group of dilapidated grass huts - as staging shelters - generally set in a foul, offensive clearing. Every now and then, leave beside the track dumps of discarded, putrifying food, occasional dead bodies and human foulings. In the morning, flicker the sunlight through the tall trees, flutter green and blue and purple and white butterflies lazily through the air, and hid birds of deep-throated song, or harsh cockatoos, in the foliage."
"About midday, and through the night, pour water over the forest, so that the steps become broken, and a continual yellow stream flows downwards, and the few level areas become pools and puddles of putrid black mud. In the high ridges above Myola, drip this water day and night over the track through a foetid forest grotesque with moss and glowing phosphorescent fungi. Such is the track which a prominent politician publicly described as 'being almost impassable for motor vehicles,' and such is the route for ten days to be covered from Ilolo to Deniki."
The Trail is probably centuries old - a main highway over the range - and in the usual manner of native pads, follows no established principles. It climbs the highest ridges, plunges down into the deepest ravines, and ascends the longest spurs. Between Uberi and the crest of the range, the track climbs more than 20,000 feet, although is has an altitude of 7,000 feet at its highest point. For every one thousand feet of altitude gained, the track drops six hundred feet to the foot of the next ascent.
Personal Development
Adventure Kokoda treks are as much about personal development as they are 
about historical, cultural and environmental awareness.
On our first night in Port Moresby trekkers have an exclusive group function where they get to meet each other over a delightful meal and a few glasses of South Pacific lager. At this function your Adventure Kokoda Trek Leader will provide a detailed briefing on the:
- current political/economic/cultural climate in Papua New Guinea;
- strategic situation in the South West Pacific area in 1942; and the
- details of the trek ahead of us including administration, safety, etc.
The next morning your group boards a twin otter aircraft for a 20 minute flight across the Trail to the Kokoda airfield. The journey back takes considerably longer as you retrace the footsteps of our Diggers as they bore the brunt of the Japanese advance in 1942. Along the Trail you will get to inspect battle sites, receives briefings, enjoys village hospitality and conquer more than physical mountains.
Marion Frith describes the feeling at the end of her journey:
"As we clamber aboard the truck that has come to take us to the airport we have no doubt we are now invincible. We have plummeted to our worst lows and soared to our greatest heights. There is nothing physically or emotionally we cannot endure. We had set off as 34 individuals, half of us Australians and half of us Papuan villagers. When we part we are friends - an indivisible and strong unit for whom farewells come hard.
"If the spirit of Kokoda is strength in adversity, courage and mateship that spirit has been seeded in us all. We cross in a brief 20 minutes what has taken us eight gruelling days. And like all those who crossed it before us, who left their souls in the mud and the heat and the terrifying jungle, few will ever go back.
"Charlie, of course, is the exception. He will continue to pluck other ordinary humans from their comfortable lives and help them blossom into indefatigables, drawing on the greatness that lies largely unchallenged within us all. For the rest of us though, Kokoda will become just one humbling week in our lifetime: albeit our whole lifetimes lived in just one unforgettably humbling week".
On your return to Port Moresby the group visits Bomana War Cemetery and 
enjoys a half-day tour of Port Moresby that includes a visit to the PNG National Parliament, the National Museum and PNG Art which houses a large range of local artifacts, carvings and souvenirs.
On the last night the group has another private function with a sumptuous buffet, South Pacific lager, wine and some ripping yarns. They can also view the 'Angry Anderson Challenge' documentary, which was led by Charlie Lynn in 1996. Trekkers are then presented with their well-earned souvenir Adventure Kokoda polo shirt and commemorative certificate of achievement.
Trekker Testimonials
Derek Cameron - 2006:
'Charlie, it ain’t broke, so for God’s sake don’t try to fix it! Though I found the trek very taxing (‘cause nothing can prepare you for New Guinea but New Guinea) it was an awesome experience and is only becoming more so as I reflect more deeply on it. The history was all that I had hoped and much more, largely due to Chad’s expertise. The villagers and porters were great people to meet, friendly, helpful, polite and considerate, perfectly illustrating the contrast of their culture with our materialistic, individualistic and competitive lifestyle. I couldn’t help reflecting, during the superb “sing sing” at Kagi, how unlikely it would be for my contemporaries in suburban Brisbane to copy such behaviour. But perhaps the best part of the trip was how 29 Aussies – young or old, male or female, canetoads or cockroaches, miners or surgeons – when yanked out of their comfort zone (big time!) bonded together to make a great team. There was not one harsh word – rather, nothing but support and encouragement when someone was doing it tough, which was everyone at some stage. I think it gave us a small glimpse of how those wonderful young blokes in 1942 managed to do what they did. I always admired them – now I think of them as superhuman. I will do all in my power as a teacher of young blokes to let them know the sort of men their grandfathers were, and what they did at a critical time in our history. Thank you for providing me with a chance to share in the Spirit of Kokoda.
Lukim yu,'
Craig Thomas -
2006:
'What can you say! He’s the man alright! An Australian icon fighting the battle for the awareness of a campaign that every person should already know about. His knowledge of the campaign and the terrain of Kokoda is exceptional. His passion and love for the Koiari people and their love for him is truly special. I felt fortunate to be associated with Charlie along the track, because that love and friendship was then shared with me . . .'
Christine Hay - 2007 :
'An inspirational, confronting and incredibly rewarding adventure. I am extremely grateful of being able to complete it, and I believe a much better person for having done so. My friends and family say I am radiating an inner glow they haven’t seen before!'
Michael Palm - 2007:
'A very well organized trek by Adventure Kokoda. The knowledge of WW11, enthusiasm and humour made this trek most memorable for my son, Max and I. The organisation of transport, porters, meals, campsites and everything was above what I expected. A number of other trek groups were amazed at what we had and the history we learned along the way from Chad and Bernie. They were all very jealous as their treks seemed to be to get from A to B as quick as possible. Since being home, we miss the track, people, country and quietness of our experience. A very significant 10 days of my life . . .'
Andrew Sarich - 2007:
'From talking to other trekkers who were trekking with other companies it is obvious that the Adventure Kokoda experience far exceeds that given by the other companies.
'Adventure Kokoda provided me with everything I wanted from trekking the Kokoda track. Adventure, emotion (the service at Isurava Memorial was amazing) thorough campaign history.
'Thank you for providing me with what will be one of my greatest life experiences . . .'
Katherine Williams - 2006:
'We chose to trek with Adventure Kokoda because the website was so professional and such a great source of information that it seemed like the best group, and we found that we made the right decision. I was especially glad when my porter told me about the some of the other companies treatment of them. The porters are such fantastic people, I am really glad that adventure kokoda not only looks after them on the trek but tries to help their villages as well.
T'he trek was the most amazing experience of my life so far and it is very strange to be back home. I would definitely recommend adventure kokoda to anyone wanting to do the trek. Thank you for providing such a fantastic trek.
Chris Moroney - 2007
'Chad and Simon are a credit to your company.
'Their professionalism, positive attitude and good sense of humour ensured a very memorable trek. Chad’s poetry deserves a special mention as it added to the moment after the battlesite briefings and at the Isurava dawn service.'
Melissa McKewen - 2006:
'Overall the trek is one of the most fulfilling journeys I have ever completed in my life. I went with no real expectations of the level of difficulty of the trek, the amount of history to be absorbed, the beauty of the country and the culture and the amazing fellow trekkers and trek leaders that I would meet. I would highly recommend the trek and trek company to anyone who is interested. I loved every single minute, including being bogged and the delays at the end of the trip which strangely seemed to enhance the experience. There were moments along the trek when I have never been happier- I feel like my soul has grown! Thank you sincerely for such a complete experience. Charlie you’re just wonderful! All the very best x'
Kim Stevens - 2007:
'
Thank you to everyone at Adventure Kokoda for giving me the opportunity to treck Kokoda. It was an experience that I will never forget. I met a great bunch of people and learnt a lot. Its funny that after the second day of this trip I was thinking about when I could return again and that hasn’t changed and it definitely will be with Adventure Kokoda . . .'
David Gordon - 2006:
'I really enjoyed the trek and I’m probably only now really appreciating the sense of achievement and understanding. Overall the whole experience rated 11 out of 10 and obviously far exceeded our expectations. We have already begun shouting the praises of Charlie and Adventure Kokoda and would love to do it again.
Thank you for an unbelievable adventure . . .'
Laurie Taggart - 2007 :
'Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy one of the truly great and unique experiences available today. It is a trip that is in my memory forever. A great event in my life. Thank you.'