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A group of friends from the Gold Coast/Brisbane area and one other guy from Sydney headed out to Kokoda to commence their 6 day trek. They consisted of:
Jeff Snelling; Kelly Zelinski; Tony Holznagel; Lloyd Love and Mark McInnes
Trekkers were picked up from their respective hotels and taken to the airport. As the flights were running a little late I took them for a drive around Port Moresby.
The photograph below was taken inside the compound where we live.
Photograph: trekkers on top of a hill in the Donnybrook/Brian Bell Compound, Gordons:
IMGP3927__Medium_.JPGA short time later trekkers were back at the airport and about to board their flight to Kokoda with Tropic Air:
IMGP3928__Medium_.JPGAll aboard, …. some time later they arrived in Kokoda and commenced their walk up throught he Kokoda Station and onto Kovelo, Hoi, Deneki and finally Isurava Village for their first overnight:
IMGP3929__Medium_.JPGUpdate 26th June: Trekkers are doing just fine. Kelly struggled a little bit yesterday but is doing ok. The men carrying their packs have not yelled out help as yet and according to our guide Chris Suma are doing just fine.
Last night the slept the night at Isurava Village and this walking the first radio call came in from the Isurava Monument area which is a couple of hours walk away.
The next radio message came from the village of Alola. Chris said they were all doing just great and that their destination would be Templeton's 1 where they would spend the night.
Photograph: Templeton's 1:
Templetons_Crossing.jpgUpdate 25th June – 5:30pm:Chris our guide just phoned in by sat phone to say Lloyd is having problems with his thigh muscles and might have to pull out. Him and Chris are going to rest at Templeton's II tonight to see how he is in the morning. The others have pushed through to Templeton's I. If not better tomorrow, he will have to get himself to Templeton's I to allow a chopper to go in and pick him up. Rest assured he is ok, just finding it difficult to walk.
Update 28th June: Firstly Lloyd Love was picked up finally by chopper after their third attempt to get him out from Templeton's 1 due to bad weather. I spoke to him last night and he appeared in good spirits and actually seemed to enjoy sitting with our guide in the bush and also the perve on the pretty nurse who went out to pick him up.
With regards to the remaining members of his trek due we heard from them today at Ioribaiwa and they are all doing just fine and spent last night at Nauro Village.
They are planning on pushing as far as they can today to get as close to Owers' Corner as possible as one of the team has a flight to catch tomorrow afternoon back to Australia.
Our only problem now is the road leading up to Owers' from Sogeri. If the rain keeps up its going to be hard getting down to pick them up tomorrow so have warned our guide they may have to keep walking until they catch up with our pick up car.
Update 30th June:Trekkers came out as planned yesterday and we met up with them last night at the Gateway Hotel. All appeared to have enjoyed their trek but looked a little tired. They are in town as well today so are planning on getting together with their porters for a beer or two and a meal at the Royal Papua Yacht Club tonight.
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