LURE OF THE TRACK
WITH a glint in his eye, Allan Wood reflects on what it means to walk the Kokoda Track.
“I just love the place,” he said.
“I love the experience of the finish line … I watched my 58-year-old mate stop 50 metres from the end in tears saying he couldn’t go any further.”
Mr Wood’s company, Go Kokoda Tours, is on ice this year as the world deals with the coronavirus pandemic, but it hasn’t stopped those with the experience on their bucket list from training. Planning is going full steam ahead for a tour on April 22, when Allan hopes to get a group of around 15 joining him on his fifth expedition.
And it’s easy to train now under COVID-19 restrictions, with Mr Wood’s advice to “train for what you’re going to do.” “Mostly it’s just walking,” he said.
“Don’t think, ‘I’m going to do Kokoda so I’m going to head straight for Castle Hill’, most of my training I do on the Douglas paths along the river.
“It’s just flat walking, Closer to the time I’ll ramp it up and do hill training.” The company was founded last year with a focus on social innovation and a mantra of “trade not aid”.
It means everything that goes into Go Kokoda Tours stays in Papua New Guinea with everyone undertaking the challenge injecting around $2500 into its economy.
That’s through money spent on tour guides, trekker fees, porters, accommodation and other costs.
There were also plans to establish a charity side to the tour company, with hopes of starting a computer school for children who are “keen to learn”.
But Mr Woods is also making sure he is protecting the PNG locals from abroad through not taking groups and risking the spread of coronavirus. Mr Woods said about 78 per cent of Australians had walking the track in the top three of their bucket list, but only 0.8 per cent of our population actually do it.
“I want to close that gap,” he said. “Probably nearly 100 per cent it’s a goal, it’s only once they start talking to me and I start talking about the funds that get injected into the area from us going there that they start to think about that.
“We do it to support the veterans, as everyone should, but it’s solely the love of the track, the history, the people.”