Saturday. As usual up at 5am b/fast and on the track. Again we let team 1 get a half hour start. 

My quote for the day. 

To quote that eminent professor Bill Murray from Ghost Busters 1.  “We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Ass”.

Today will be a short walk approximately 3 hours. We waded through Goldie river.  

    
   
Chad crossed the river first then me. We dropped our packs – fun was about to break out. Look at Chad on the left in the bottom picture. After quickly taking the picture I made my way towards the others. Our intentions were very honourable we just wanted to cool them down. 

The porters, Chad and some of the others ran around letting off steam. Richard had a gun-slinger moment dropping his pack throwing off his hat to the ground and charging a group of porters. He went down big time. 

It was a relaxing fun moment. 

Then it was up the last steep slope to Owers Corner and through the Kokoda Arches. 

The other team clapped us in and everyone congratulated each other. 

We dropped our packs for the last time on the trip. Changed out of our wet boots and loaded our packs onto the buses before getting on another bus to take us to Bormana War Cemetery.   

    
    
  It was so sad to walk between the rows of grave stones marked unknown. 

The was a very sobering place. After our trip we could not imagine what those troops had endured. Our walk was hard but they had to put up with malaria, dysentery and the might of the Japanese army. 

We owe them a great debt. 

Rest in Peace. 

Our final good bye to our porters the decedents of theFuzzyWuzzy Angels. 

Back at the hotel we unpacked our rucksacks, washed my boots  and re packed our cases. 

The first beer was fantastic, superseded by a long hot shower. 

After a phone call to Linda and a second, or more truthfully, third beer, it was downstairs for dinner. 

We all had a really great final dinner. I even had seconds. 

Chad nominated Richard and myself for our teams Mateship Award. 

For me, not sure about the others, the night ended early. Tomorrow was another 2.50am wake up down stairs and the reverse of just over a week ago. Back to Brisbane and then off to Perth. 

This was a trip I will always remember. 

KOKODA 2015.