Bushwalk to Isurava. 23rd May 2008.

I was hoping to walk up to Isurava from Kokoda in two days, resting overnight in Deniki but thanks to Airlines PNG, I started off from Kokoda one day behind schedule, but with enough time to get to Isurava in one attempt.

I left the airport at 0920 and headed to the Asian Stoa which is located near Muddy Creek (a misnomer if ever I heard one) and my porters and guides picked up some food for the few days we were to be in the Owen Stanley Ranges. I bought some water and some brown fizzy drink and was set. Immediately leaving the Stoa there is a climb up to the Kokoda Memorial and Museum, from here you head due South past the Hospital and along a Tractor Track towards Kovello. This is a flat start to what soon becomes the up and down savagery of the Kokoda Track.

Soon after Kovello, you get to the small Village of Hoy, look out for a Cassowary who is penned up on your left, and also the stream here is deep enough that you should remove your boots. You do not want wet feet in only the first hour of walking.

After Hoy, the track weaves through Chokko fields and heads skywards up to Deniki, where there is a good rest stop and hopefully a 5 Kina brown fizzy drink to get you the caffeine you need for the rest of the day. Because from here, it is up, up and up to Isurava, through tree roots and mud and stones and small streams, the track continues its brutal climb.

And it gets darker and darker… and as the clouds lift up the Yodda Valley, the humidity reaches saturation and everything gets wet. But by a few minutes before 1700 you reach the Isurava Village, there are guesthouses here and at the Memorial Site and the people who live in the clouds are warm in heart but cool to touch; the children loved holding on to my warm hands after my big walk and their hands were so cold to touch. It was an emotional welcome after such a climb.