Joining the PM for his Kokoda Track hike offered rare insights

Monday

Is Anthony Albanese a platypus killer? It was not a question I had expected to confront en route to Papua New Guinea to walk part of the Kokoda Track with the prime minister. But all politics, as they say, is local. Even geopolitics. So here we are, taking a detour to Mackay, to celebrate the opening of a new taxpayer-funded jetty.

About two dozen protesters have crashed the event to voice their outrage over a massive pumped hydroelectric storage facility near Mackay. According to the protesters, the project poses a grave risk to native fauna, especially the platypus. They want Albanese to kybosh it. While one man mutters conspiratorially about the vast powers of the United Nations, the anti-hydro activists are polite, happy to quietly wave their signs rather than hurl abuse. After less than an hour on the ground in north Queensland, we are wheels up on the federal government’s business Boeing jet. Destination: Port Moresby, the PNG capital.

Above all, this is a trip about history, an opportunity for Albanese to pay tribute to the 625 Australians who died in the Kokoda campaign during World War II. But no matter how powerful the past, the present is huge. You can’t escape it. Albanese is arriving in PNG just a day after a visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. By all accounts, the timing of the back-to-back visits is coincidental. That doesn’t make it any less resonant in symbolism. Eight decades ago, Australia and Japan fought for control of this patch of earth; today, Australia and China are competing for influence in the Pacific, including in PNG.

Panic erupted in Canberra two years ago when Solomons Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed a secretive security pact with Beijing, raising fears of a possible Chinese military base in the region. A similar deal with PNG, Australia’s closest geographic neighbour, would be even more alarming.

Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese and Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Wang, a veteran diplomat, plays the best cards in his deck while in Port Moresby. The size of the Chinese market makes it irresistible, especially for a developing nation like PNG. During Wang’s trip, officials strike agreements to make it easier for PNG farmers to export cocoa and coffee beans to China. This follows recent moves to open direct flights between the two countries and boost PNG natural gas and hydrogen exports.

Wang also gets in some jabs at Australia, claiming that the AUKUS submarine pact is creating division in the region and insisting that PNG is not part of anyone’s “backyard”.

China has its weaknesses, though. Soft power is one of them. During his visit to PNG, Wang stays put at his hotel; PNG Prime Minister James Marape and other officials travel to him for their meetings. By contrast, Albanese is about to spend the next two nights trekking with Marape through the jungle, mingling with locals in remote villages. This is a moment in history. A sitting Australian prime minister has never walked a part of the Kokoda Track before. Neither has a PNG prime minister.

Albanese and Marape during their trek.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

As we go to sleep in Port Moresby, it is pelting rain, the sky an ominous charcoal-grey. For all the planning that has gone into this trip, it’s a reminder of how much is out of anyone’s control.

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Tuesday

Mercifully, the sun can be seen in the sky when we wake up. Unfortunately, fog in the mountains surrounding Kokoda Village is also visible, making it too risky to depart on time. The delay at Port Moresby airport provides an opportunity for trepidation to kick in. I ask myself: What, exactly, are we about to embark on here?

Ten media representatives have joined the hastily organised trip but because of logistical constraints, only five of us are doing the entire walk with Albanese. This masthead has sent me along because I write about foreign affairs, not because of my prowess in the outdoors. Rugged is not a word anyone would use to describe me, yet here I am in newly bought hiking boots, my backpack stocked with anti-malaria pills and water purification tablets. I give myself a mental slap. If Albanese, 25 years my senior at 61, can do the walk then so can I. More importantly, two nights in the jungle is nothing compared to the ordeal Australian soldiers faced during World War II when they walked the trek malnourished, racked with dysentery and weighed down with weapons and ammunition.

The view from Owers’ Corner where the Kokoda Track begins.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

As our 18-seat light aircraft lifts into the sky, my doubts dissipate. A vast expanse of rainforest opens up beneath us, lush beyond imagining and stretching into eternity. Green, green, green as far as the eye can see. Rivers and paths etched into the landscape like lines on the palm of a hand.

Unlike in Mackay, there are no protesters in sight when we arrive at Kokoda Village. Members of local tribes – some clad in black body paint, others wearing vibrant yellow – have spent most of the night practising their ceremonial welcome. The governor of Oro Province has declared today a public holiday, allowing thousands of people from far-flung villages to walk through the jungle for the arrival of the two prime ministers. Children dominate the crowd, reflecting PNG’s remarkably youthful population. About 60 per cent of Papua New Guineans are aged under 25, double the figure in Australia.

Albanese makes a creek crossing.Credit: Dominic Lorimer

Albanese is standing on sacred ground for Australia, but especially for the Labor Party. It was John Curtin who demanded Australian troops return from the Middle East to defend the homeland during World War II, a time when PNG was part of Australian territory. And it was Paul Keating who elevated the importance of the Kokoda campaign, distinguishing it from distant imperial conflicts like Gallipoli. During a 1992 trip, he famously bowed down and kissed the earth in reverence.

Albanese does not do the same, but is clearly moved by the jubilant reception he receives. “The Australian national anthem has never sounded better,” he tells the PNG children who sing both verses of Advance Australia Fair.

From here, our trek begins. Marape, an avid golfer who plays weekly, is walking in five-year-old white golf shoes. Oro Governor Garry Juffa walks for several hours barefoot. Each trekker is assigned a porter, who carries our camping gear and keeps an eye on us. Along the way, we stop in villages. A local man uses a machete to slice open fresh coconuts for Albanese and Marape to drink; Albanese and local kids throw around a mini State of Origin ball he has brought with him as a gift. As we proceed deeper into the jungle, the air throbs with a soundtrack of cicadas and birds of paradise.

Albanese heads up a steep section of the Kokoda Track.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Albanese, a passionate tennis player, has had little time to prepare for the walk. Plans to hike around Canberra had to be shelved when a man went on a murderous rampage at Westfield Bondi Junction and a teenager stabbed a priest at Wakeley. Yet, the prime minister has a Roger Federer-like ability not to perspire. Not all of us are so lucky, and are instantly drenched in sweat soon after departing. The air is thick with humidity, making it feel far hotter than the forecast 30 degrees. The incline makes today’s walk feel double the advertised eight kilometres.

As we approach Deniki Village, our final destination for the day, the sun is beating down and the path seems to become vertical. Betraying my lack of experience, I speed up – trying to reach the campsite before I become too tired, or my water supply runs out. After arriving at the campsite I lie splayed on the ground like Rafael Nadal after winning a grand slam event.

At a candlelight dinner, we dine on a surprisingly tasty boiled sachet meal of rice and chicken curry. Marape is eating rice and canned bully beef, a staple for Australian soldiers during the war. As he tucks in, he tells of his desire to lift his nation out of poverty – shifting from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture without destroying the natural beauty of the environment. In a region that has seen its fair share of coups and strong men, he is a proud democrat who wants to entrench the rule of law. Political reporters are supposed to be hard-bitten and cynical, but Marape seems like a fundamentally decent man, striving to do his best for a nation facing profound challenges. Within minutes after lying down on the bed of my tent, I’m fast asleep.

The prime ministers’ entourage sets up camp in Deniki on Tuesday night.Credit: Matthew Knott

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Wednesday

Somehow, the secret is out: today is Marape’s 53rd birthday. Keen to avoid a fuss, the PNG prime minister didn’t want anyone to know, but Albanese greets him at 6.30am with a birthday hug.

Marape, it turns out, is full of surprises. Stockily built and with a big appetite, he doesn’t look like an athlete, but today he sets the pace for the walk. He points out he grew up in the jungle and didn’t wear shoes until he was 10. Along the way, he strips down to his shorts to bathe in a running stream, a child-like look of pure joy crossing his face.

It is clear, as they walk and chat, that Albanese and Marape have an unusually close bond for two world leaders. Both have addressed each other’s parliaments in historic firsts. When Albanese suggested that he wanted to walk the track, Marape said he would join for the entire expedition. As a Melanesian host, he tells us, it would be rude not to.

On a trip like this, Albanese would usually come bearing a few “announceables”, but not this time. Offers from Australian officials for specific funding announcements were politely but firmly knocked back. This trip is about deepening relationships, not a business transaction.

On today’s walk, we enjoy more cloud cover and canopy to protect us from the sun. On the downside, there are more steep descents and sudden inclines. The ground is a combination of squelching mud and smooth, slippery rocks. It’s a testament to the care of our porters that no one has had so much as a stumble.

Staring at your feet much of the day, you have to remind yourself to stop and take it in: the lattice-like curtains of vines, the white Angel’s Trumpet flowers dangling upside down, the sudden flashes of red foliage breaking up the expanse of green. And to think what it would be like to be a soldier here, never knowing if an enemy with a gun is in the hills surrounding you.

After connecting with the rest of our contingent, we continue to the end point of our trek, the Isurava Memorial site. Shaped like a natural amphitheatre, it makes you instantly feel that you are in a sacred place. Isurava was the site of one of the Kokoda campaign’s fiercest battles, leading to the death of 99 Australians.

Albanese and Marape arrive at the Isurava memorial site at the end of their two-day trek.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Over dinner, Marape, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, says he believes God blessed us with the remarkably pleasant walking conditions we have enjoyed over the past two days. Just as we are about to go to bed, the chief ranger of the local area, Ivan Nitua, comes to speak to Albanese. He explains that his father was a “fuzzy wuzzy angel” – one of the Papua New Guinean villagers who transported supplies for Australian troops and carried injured soldiers during the war. He says it means a lot to the local people that a foreign leader hasn’t just flown in and out, but is sleeping among the locals in a tent, without showers or flushing toilets. “We will treasure this,” he says. In the darkness, as his birthday draws to a close, Marape’s face beams with pride.

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Thursday

The campers’ headlights shine like earthly stars as Albanese stands in the dark to deliver his Anzac Day dawn service address. “In our pride, we feel the weight of history as we gather here along the Kokoda Track, this great artery of mud and suffering and perseverance that has come to occupy a place of singular power in Australia’s shared memory,” he says.

Anthony Albanese and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape at the Isurava memorial site during the dawn service on Thursday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Soon after the service ends, the airfield is cleared and two PNG Defence Force helicopters arrive to transport us home, their whirring blades evoking the movie, Apocalypse Now.

Indeed, this is a place that has seen horror. Suffering, too. Not today, though. This has been a sombre but uplifting experience.

The helicopter blades keep swirling, and suddenly, we are borne aloft, the vast ocean of green stretching beneath us, the mountains rising and falling, rising and falling, all around us like waves.

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