Kokoda Trail
- 
The site(s) of a decisive battle in WWII, when Japan tried and failed to capture Port Moresby via the Kokoda Trail through the mountainous jungle inland of New Guinea. The eventual victory of Australian troops in this battle is one of those legendary elements of the whole ANZAC story.
More background info: After Imperial Japan entered WWII through the attack on Pearl Harbor and the seizure of Singapore in December 1941, it didn’t take the Japanese long to advance fast and far throughout the Pacific, reaching Rabaul as early as January 1942.
In July 1942 the Japanese also landed on the northern coast of “mainland” New Guinea to gain a foothold there and then pushed inland and captured Kokoda with its airfield. But it was capturing Port Moresby that was the real objective of the Japanese, who wanted to use it as a base from which to attack mainland Australia and cut it off from American supplies and support.
After the costly Battle of the Coral Sea and then the loss of four aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway, however, Japanese naval and air capacities were severely weakened, so they decided to try and reach Port Moresby overland. They embarked on a difficult march along the trail south, the infamous Kokoda Trail – a track only navigable on foot that runs through mountainous jungle terrain for ca. 60 miles (nearly 100 km) south from Kokoda on to Owers’ Corner. The latter is only a good 35 miles (60 km) from Port Moresby.
The Japanese made good advances initially. The Australian defence forces fought bitterly but were pushed back. Australian efforts included attacks from behind enemy lines, but they fought with inadequate equipment whereas the Japanese had managed to take light artillery and machine guns along the track that the Australians had deemed unsuitable for carrying such heavy loads. The Japanese succeeded in getting close to the end of the trail, almost within view of Port Moresby. But the advance faltered. It wasn’t just the bravery and persistence of the Australians. It certainly helped that the Japanese had overstretched their supply lines and were actually ordered to retreat. In the end, the Australians managed to push the Japanese back all the way along the Kokoda Trail and later also recaptured some of the Japanese beachheads on the northern coast. The main battles lasted from July to November 1942, though some of the northern battles on the periphery continued well into 1943.
The Australian victory in the Kokoda Campaign is seen as a major turning point in the Pacific theatre of WWII and is greatly mythologized within the Australian ANZAC narrative, as you can also see at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The soldiers’ perseverance in extremely difficult terrain, in barely penetrable jungle, often at high altitudes with cold nights and hot humid days elsewhere, with frequently heavy downpours and the risk of all manner of tropical diseases (especially malaria) – all this is deserving of admiration. But the emphasis on heroism involved in the glorified representations of the campaign is probably a bit exaggerated.
After WWII, the Kokoda Trail (aka Kokoda Track) became overgrown in many places due to disuse and the passage of time. Later there developed a sort of extreme sport of trying to cover the length of the trail in ever shorter record times.
There were/are also efforts to declare the Kokoda Trail a World Heritage Site, for which a foundation was established in 2003. Meanwhile hiking the trail has also become an activity for extreme tourists, becoming ever more popular in the 2000s (peaking in 2007 with over 5000 hikers completing the trail).
There has been controversy about the distribution of the money generated from this business and accordingly grievance on the part of the local population (who on at least one occasion blocked the trail). There have also been some tourist fatalities (from hypothermia in the mountains), prompting calls for more regulation of the hike operators.
The track has even been used for an extreme endurance running race, with a record time for completion of under 17 hours!
Before you ask: I did not even go on the actual track. My tour from Port Morseby only took me to Owers’ Corner, the southern trailhead of the Kokoda Track, from where ranger-led hikes start. For me it was more the WWII commodification that counted from a dark-tourism perspective. And anyway I would have had neither the equipment/clothing nor the inclination to embark on such an extreme hike.
What there is to see: When I was in Port Moresby in August 2024 it was supposed to be just an overnight stay in an airport hotel and then an onward flight to Rabaul the next day. But since that didn’t happen then, nor on the following day (due to airline failure – see details here), the local operators (that the company I had booked with used on the ground) suggested using what would otherwise have been a wasted day to go on a tour of Port Moresby and beyond into the mountains including Owers’ Corner and the Kokoda Trail. Even though that added significantly to the costs of our PNG adventure, my wife and I agreed.
So we were picked up from our hotel by the operator’s boss and two further Papuans (one of whom it later turned out would have been our guide in Rabaul but he got stuck in Port Moresby just like us). Our jolly little group of five set off in a van, first through Port Moresby, then into the interior along increasingly winding roads into the mountains. Our driver-guide pointed out various original relics from WWII, such as metal railings and a crude rusty bridge (which a new road bridge fortunately bypassed). The roads were winding ever higher. Often along sheer drops down a cliff side into deep valleys (I was thinking of the infamous Yungas Road in Bolivia at times).
Eventually a side road turned into a dirt track and that wound further up until we came, literally, to the end of the road. This was at Owers’ Corner, where the southern trailhead of the actual Kokoda Track through the jungle would begin. (There’s a rangers’ hut for the guides who take actual hikers on this difficult route). But we never set foot on the actual mountain track …
We just looked around the various monuments that have been put up here, including a set of informative text-and-photo panels, one side of which were about the Kokoda Trail Campaign of WWII, the other about the hiking today and the nature and wildlife along the way. There was also a copy of the memorial stone and plaque such as I had seen earlier that day at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Port Moresby. In addition there was, under a protective roof, an Australian 25-pounder artillery gun, the same model as the three that were used in the actual campaign.
That was it at Owers’ Corner, but on our way back down we also stopped at a couple of yet more memorial monuments related to the Kokoda Trail Campaign. We also made a stop at a waterfall viewpoint, then we headed back to Port Moresby.
All in all, it was a useful exercise to do, if only for the most part so that we didn’t have yet another totally wasted day stranded in Port Moresby. This way we got at least something out of our ill-fated trip to PNG, even if our main destination Rabaul remained out of reach (see, again, here). Under different circumstances I would have thought long and hard whether this excursion would really be worth the steep asking price (see below). But after the airline failures of the previous two days, we just became fatalistic and said to each other: sod it. Better pay through the nose for this than just sit in a hotel room or airport lounge all day.
So if you too find yourself with a day to spare and the money for it is not such an issue for you, then, yes, do go on this tour as well. It’s certainly something special.
Location: The southern trailhead is ca. 35 miles (60 km) north-east of PNG’s capital city Port Moresby, then running north as a rough track for another 60 miles (100 km) through thick mountainous jungle.
Google Maps locators:
Owers’ Corner: [-9.3620, 147.4879]
Original WWII-era bridge: [-9.42742, 147.38914]
Koiari waterfall lookout: [-9.42222, 147.38278]
Access and costs: realistically only by private guided tour; very expensive.
Details: In theory you could hire a car and drive to Owers’ Corner yourself; but given the nature of the roads and dirt tracks, that should only be attempted by experienced drivers. Even our local driver-guide struggled on some stretches of dirt track that had become seriously muddy due to recent downpours.
So better go by private guided tour, like the one I was offered when I was stuck in Port Moresby (see above). It was arranged spontaneously by the local operator. So I do not know how you would regularly go about booking such a tour (but I could give you the name of the local operator and/or that of the Australian travel company that I had booked with that used them for the on-the-ground services – if you’re interested contact me). Nor do I know whether these tours are regularly available or have to booked further in advance normally.
What I do know, though, is that they charged us a hefty additional fee for it (in the region of 500 USD if my memory serves me right), even though we had just lost the Rabaul tour that they had also been booked to organize.
I would have found it fairer if they had offered us at least a discount as a sort of consolation for not having been able to do the Rabaul tour that we had primarily come to PNG for. But I guess they just see Western tourists as cash cows you can milk endlessly and shamelessly. From their perspective you can perhaps see it that way, but for me it left a rather bitter taste in the mouth, especially afterwards, the longer I thought about it. That’s also why I fended off enquiries by the local operator about some sort of collaboration with DT (but if you read the sponsored pages explanation chapter you will see that there are criteria, some of which would simply not be met by this outfit).
How you book group hikes on the actual Kokoda Trail with a ranger guide I do not know; I’d have to research that from scratch myself, but since I’m not interested in that sort of thing I won’t.
Time required: The whole tour took some 6 to 6 ½ hours, about half of which was spent on the approach to and at Owers’ Corner. Going on the actual Kokoda Trail would obviously take significantly longer (up to 12 days on tourist hikes).
Combinations with other dark destinations: Other than actually hiking the length of the real Kokoda Trail, I wouldn’t know of anything else in the area, except for the Commonwealth War Cemetery back in Port Moresby.
See also under PNG in general.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: An extra aspect of the tour that can’t really be considered dark was seeing the grand mountainous jungle scenery, along the way on the approach to Owers’ Corner, and especially from Owers’ Corner itself … into the seemingly endless green expanse of hills and mountains and valleys below. That’s something we would otherwise have completely missed out on, so I appreciate that we had the chance of getting at least a little glimpse of what the interior of PNG looks like.
On the way back from Owers’ Corner we also made an additional stop at a lookout and beauty spot at a two-tier waterfall (I believe it was called Koiari) plunging over two escarpments into a deep valley below. That was probably the most scenic thing we got to see in the country.
See also under Port Moresby and PNG in general.
