The Kokoda Trail is a single-file track which begins 50 km east of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and runs 96 km overland through the Owen Stanley Range to Kokoda.
The track crosses some of the most rugged and most isolated terrain in the world and it is only passable on foot. It is steep and can be dangerous, reaching a height of 2,250 metres at Mount Bellamy.
Hot humid days with intensely cold nights, torrential rainfall and endemic tropical diseases such as malaria make it a challenge to walk. During 1942 and ’43, Allied troops, primarilly Australian, fought a series of arduous battles with the invading Japanese forces, strategically retreating under overwhelming numbers, before rallying and holding the Japanese at the Ioribaiwa ridgeline, within sight of Port Moresby. After heavy fighting, the Japanese were forced to withdraw, and the Australian troops re-captured all of the previously lost territory.
The campain is noted by historians for its incredible hardship, but also as being the first time that Australian soldiers had ever fought without the presence of or support from the United Kingdom, and the first time Australian troops fought and died defending a force invading their own territory.
