Kokoda Track

The Kokoda Track runs ninety six kilometres across the Owen Stanley Range between Owers' Corner and the village of Kokoda, and it is the single best known journey in Papua New Guinea. Australian and Japanese forces fought along it through 1942 in conditions that killed as many men as the fighting did, and the battle sites at Isurava and Brigade Hill are marked. The walk takes eight to ten days over ridges that climb and drop a thousand metres at a time, through rainforest, river crossings and villages that host trekkers. Porters and a licensed operator are effectively compulsory.