DAY 5 - KAGI VILLAGE TO MENARI

Saturday 06 June

The trekkers had a great evening last night listening to the children singing. However, it was up early again as they made the short trek past the church out of the village to the airfield for the steepest descent of the trek down to the creek crossing and few struggled with the down hill. Here they filled up with some water and then had a 10 minute calf burner to the top followed by a relatively easy hike for 30 minutes out in the sun for a rest and then another 30 minutes into Efogi on the hill for a break. Here the trekkers rested and had morning tea, enjoying the views down to Efogi Village in the valley. Then they trekked 30 minutes down to the village and inspected the museum before hiking out of the village enjoying the beautiful views as they began the slogging ascent of Brigade Hill via Mission Ridge. They stopped briefly at Mission Ridge to chat some more about the campaign and then headed onto Brigade Hill for an emotional ceremony on the summit in honour of the soldiers and in remembrance of their bravery. The crew had lunch at Brigade Hill and then followed the track, with a long descent for 2 hours to the river. It was a nice sunny day but not too hot and the trekkers enjoyed a swim and then made a 45 minute climb up into Menari where they arrived in good time at 4:30pm. This is the site where the brave 39th Battalion were withdrawn from the campaign before the battle at Brigade Hill, exhausted and on the brink of total collapse the remaining ‘Ragged Bloody Heroes’ struggled back to Port Moresby. They would return to fight at Buna and Gona. The crew are now in camp awaiting dinner and looking forward to the cultral day tomorrow.