DAY 5 - KAGI TO MENARI

Saturday 24 May

The trekkers enjoyed emerging themselves into a little cultural village life last night as they listened to beautiful voices of the local children singing. However, it was another 5am wakeup call 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. 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. 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, however, as today is sabbath they didn’t get to buy anything from the market. The skies were blue and the track dry as they hiked out of the village enjoying the beautiful views and 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 2.5 hours into Menari. This is the site where the brave 39th Battalion were withdrawn from the campaign before the battle at Brigade Hill.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 trekkers arrived in camp early at 4:30pm and are now having a well learnt rest and waiting for dinner.

MESSAGES:

Gaston family in OZ, Gaston in NZ and friends, day 5 today, magic experience feeling it, all good. Certainly covered some incredible terrain.