Yay our first day is done and what a day it was. The alarm went off at 5.45 am for us to get up. We all grabbed our bags and went down for an awesome breakfast.
We had a group photo and then our mini bus arrived to take us to the war cemetery. I asked the two guys on the bus if they knew a guy called Benson. He was my guide on my Trek 10 years ago and it had been his first Trek. We had the best time together and I wondered about him often. They said they did know him and that he was a bus driver for another company.
Last year a friend said he was going to do Kokoda and I asked him if he could ask around if anyone knew Benson. He found out that he didn't Trek but he did work as one of the Trek bus drivers.
While we were at the Bomana Cemetery it was very confronting. There are 3871 soldiers buried there - 3870 men and 1 woman and 270 of them were unknown soldiers. The average age was 25 and there was a 16 year old there however, Greg told us that a lot more of them lied about their age to go and fight so they would have been a lot younger than their headstone says. The Cemetery is immaculately manicured and a credit to the Papua New Guinean people.
We then jumped back in our bus and traveled another 1 1/2 hours to get to our start point at Owers Corner. About 10 minutes out we came upon a bus on the side of the road with a flat tyre. As our bus pulled up to see if they needed help our bus driver yelled out 'Benson, its Benson". OMG we couldn't believe it, there was Benson in the flesh. We had a hug and a photo and he said he would see me at Owers Corner as he was driving our porters there. What are the odds after 10 years of meeting up with him - so exciting!
We got to Owers, met our a Trek Master Nathan and one at a time he introduced us to our porters. I have a man named John who has done so many treks he can't remember exactly how many. Everyone is getting familiar with the porters and they seem like they are going to be good fun and really join in with us.
We all yelled goodbye to Benson and took our first steps!
Today was only a 2 1/2 hour walk to ease us into it! We got into Goodwater Camp about 1.30 pm. It is a beautiful spot and our amazing porters went straight into putting our tents up and filling up our water for us so we could purify it.
Everyone went down to the river to soak their feet and several brave souls went right in.
The afternoon consisted of napping, cups of tea, talking and UNO. There does seem to be a few competitive people amongst us surprisingly !!!!
At 5 pm we all came together with Greg and each had a turn at saying what our high and low for the day was. After this it was time for dinner which was mashed potato, frankfurts and vegetables.
After dinner Greg sat us all around together and told us that each night he likes to have a couple of people tell us about their life story. Tonight it was Greg and it was really interesting to hear all about him.
Greg also advised that each day he chooses a person to be a Sheriff and they have to think of two challenges that we all have to do for that day. Aaron is tomorrow's Sheriff !!!
At 7 pm we all went to bed as we need to be up at 5 am in the morning for a 6 hour walking day.
