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I saw the thread about the plane that went down, but haven't read it yet, because I'm on my mum's dialup account and things are taking ages to load.
I was on the flight that was initially reported (in Australia) to be missing, with Adventure Kokoda. We had two flights into Kokoda that morning due to the size of our group. The No Roads flight was between our two. Our first plane took off and couldn't land, due to the weather conditions, so came back to refuel. They took off again and landed safely. No Roads took off not long after. When we (the 2nd group of AK trekkers) took off, the weather looked ok, but we couldn't land. We stayed in the air about 90 minutes, trying to land and the pilots looking for the other plane (we didn't know at the time), then went back to PM. It wasn't till about 5.30/6pm, at our base accommodation in Sogeri, we were told people had been told it was our plane that went down, so there were lots of phone calls home to say we were ok. We had to get to Kokoda the next day by flying into Popondetta, then getting truck into Kokoda (including having to get across the Kamusi River in tractor tyre tubes!).
Those first few days were pretty tough and we had a minute silence for those lost in the crash, at Kokoda before we trekked out, and remembered them again at Isurava at our dawn service. Channel 9 flew a chopper into Isurava and we had mixed emotions about talking to them.
We certainly felt for the people of No Roads and definitely moreso when we passed them having to stretcher out a trekker who'd hurt his leg quite badly. An incredible sight to witness, but a sad run of bad luck for the company and its people.
We had to do our 11 day trek in 9 days, so it was pretty hard going the first couple of days. Experiencing below zero temperatures and ice on our tents at Myola was certainly unexpected (cold, painful night!), but we learnt quickly nothing is how you think it will be in PNG. I had the most amazing time, and apart from a sore knee the last couple of days, made it through safely…and with over 6GB of photos and video!!!
Our group is setting up a blog for photos and a youtube site for our videos and I'll share the link once people start to upload their files, for anyone who's interested.
All things going to plan, some of us will be going back next year. I most definitely will be and I'm more confident than ever now about starting my trek training business in Melbourne and I'm really excited about being able to get people physically prepared to go (as much as they can be, anyway!).
It's been a very emotional couple of weeks and I'm glad to be home, but also would have loved to stay longer.
Eve
(new user name, coz I couldn't log into my EveG account.)
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