Kokoda Track

They were all in step on the Kokoda Track

By SUSAN YOUNG who did it

Most people thought they were mad and many were convinced they would never make it. But mad or not, the Bishops’ Walk members survived to take their place among Papua New Guinea’s less sensible, but more colourful, adventuring personalities.

The Bishops’ Walk route was from the north coast of Papua to the south coast, via the notorious Kokoda Track and the average age of the principal walkers was 54.

The Anglican Bishop of Papua New Guinea, Bishop David Hand (54), and Bishop Ravu Henao (45) of the United Church, went the whole distance—a 150-mile hike that took them two weeks.

They were accompanied along different sectors of their trek by the 60-year-old Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Marcus Loane, and the 57-year-old Roman Catholic Arch bishop of Port Moresby, Dr. Virgil Copas.

The Bishops’ Walk was designed to raise funds, through sponsorship, for the Anglican Church in Papua New Guinea and to draw attention to the million-dollar appeal which the church is conducting in Australia this year.

It was also a commemoration of the Kokoda Track campaign of 30 years ago and a demonstration of Christian unity.

The walk started from Gona beach in the Northern District, where Japan ese troops first set foot in Papua.

The send-off there set the pattern for the four-day trek to Kokoda.

All along the 65 miles of hot, dusty roads, the walkers were greeted by jubilant crowds, who pressed cash into their hands, refreshed them with coconuts, feasted them, and danced them merrily on their way.

At one village there were so many people crammed into the place that Bishop Hand had to climb into a tree to address them, and at another village the people staged a huge mock initiation ceremony as their welcome.

The whole exercise was strenuous

in the extreme —the bishops walked up to nine hours a day. Yet there was remarkably little sickness or injury in the party and they did so well that they emerged four hours ahead of schedule at Ower’s Corner, the Port Moresby end of the track.

The two archbishops left the party at Sogeri, to fulfil other engagements, while the two bishops strode on to a triumphal entry into Port Moresby.

At the height of all the excitement, Bishop Hand and Bishop Henao slipped quietly away from the crowds and, in an informal little ceremony which was missed by most people,

dabbled their weary toes in the waters of Ela beach. “That’s it,” said Bishop Hand “ —beach to beach.”

The entire episcopal party vowed that they wouldn’t have missed the walk for anything, despite its rigours and discomforts.

But obviously it meant most to the Archbishop of Sydney, for whom it was a nostalgic pilgrimage to the land where he had been a World War II army chaplain. He walked in his old beret and trousers and in the company of Ravu Henao, who as a teenager had been his wartime companion.

However, the archbishop’s parti cipation was more than just a sentimental journey. Many Anglicans see his participation, and the welcome he received, as the start of a rap prochement between the dioceses of Sydney and Papua New Guinea, which have long disapproved of each other, due largely to their being at the opposite ends of the churchman ship spectrum.

But Dr. Loane’s presence was remarkable for another reason, too: here was the man who refused to pray with the Pope sweating and praying with a Catholic prelate.

Another encouraging aspect of the walk was the response of the local people. Much of the $9,000 or so given within Papua New Guinea was given by Papua New Guineans.

As Bishop Hand said, the walk served to show that while the Papua New Guinea Church might be asking Australia for big money, it was itself prepared to make a sacrificial effort towards raising the sum.

Dr. Marcus Loane leads a group through a mountain creek during the bishops' re conquest of the famous wartime footway. Dr. Loane is the Anglican Archbishop

of Sydney.