Head down, eyes on my feet, keep moving, step, step, step, repeat my mantra ‘every step in is a step out’.  Sweat drips off my nose, stings my eyes but I keep going, step, step, step.  It’s day four on my Kokoda trek, I’m exhausted, empty, hot, dirty and yet for only the first time in four days I wonder if I can go on.  But then I hear it, the Papua New Guineans walking with us, supporting us like their ancestors the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, the people who have taught me the most necessary words in Pidgin – brother, friend, love, happy.  They start to sing, their voices resonating through the hills, the beautiful harmony, the song is about me.

The smile that hasn’t left my lips for a moment in days broadens to the greatest grin and I realise why I’m here and that the strength to go on is not inside me but all around me and I keep on going, step, step, step but now I have a renewed energy and I chance a moment to take my eyes off my feet and the tree roots and mud they are slowly navigating and look around me at the wonder that is the Kokoda Trail.

I was told that it was a hard trek, the 96 kilometres of difficult terrain brings grown men to tears after only one day, three people died this year attempting it and 9 Australians and 3 Nationals lost their lives in the Kokoda flight crash this year just trying to get there.  And yet my father, brother and I embarked on the journey prepared mentally and physically, strong and brave to face the track that once held our soldiers in a battle that defined them as more than men.  With an Australian leader, a Papuan Trek Master and 17 more Nationals to assist us and our fellow walkers we arrived in Kokoda and immediately started out with the sun beating down on us and this beautiful land.

Papua New Guinea is a beautiful country and being full of natural resources has the potential to be the richest.  It is a difficult but rewarding country to travel in, steeped in history and walking the track there are stories all around.  An uprooted tree where one Australian soldier once held his dying brother for the last time while hiding amongst the roots, a great flat topped boulder impinging on the path once a makeshift surgery table.  I expected beauty and sadness from this track but didn’t realise the extent of mateship I would feel walking the path our troops walked to defend our country so many years before.  But beyond the history the beauty of the country is indescribable, I soon discover the words green and beautiful are negligent here.

I told everyone that I’d brought home the greatest souvenir and they thought I meant the walking pole my Papuan ‘baratas’ had carved for me and indeed it is but I meant the very heart that beats inside of me is better because of the Kokoda experience, I and every one of us has changed and our lives with it because of every step we took over those eight gruelling days and every word shared amongst the family that we became.  Courage, Endurance, Sacrifice, Mateship – the four words associated with the Kokoda track – it is with these attributes we are changed.   I threw a coin over my should at the Trevy fountain to ensure my return to Italy – I don’t need to do the same to ensure my return to Papua New Guinea, for now though my memories, my friends, and my beautifully carved walking pole are enough.

‘Elisa, yu hamamas?’  The singing has stopped and I’m brought out of my reverie by the question addressed to me by Staffy my Papuan Trek Master walking twenty metres behind, his voice carries as it echoes through the hills causing my smile to again broaden into a grin.  Am I happy?  Despite our sore feet, tired knees, the sweat and a smell like no other permeating off of us I look around and see my grin mirrored in every grimy face and there is no thinking required.  ‘Mipela hamamas Staffy!’  We’re all happy.

Elisa Payne - 21 Dec 09