Having trekked Kokoda myself, I was saddened by the news of Aussie mum Samantha Killen, age 36, having died on the track. Sam leaves behind loving husband Dion and two children, a boy aged 5 and a girl aged 3.

There are no clear reports as to what caused her death, only that she felt dizzy one day into the trek and then passed away. I heard something about dehydration  too. We can’t speculate and until there is further news, there is no point.

The Nine MSN source says that Sam was on the trek with her father aged 62, her brother and a family friend. They were trekking Kokoda to honour her grandfather who had fought for Australia during the one of the toughest WWII battles.

Trekking Kokoda

The preparation involved before taking on the trek is arduous and then actually being there is even more so. I was completely out of my comfort zone. It was my greatest personal challenge to choose to do this. I’ve said it before that mud and me just don’t mix.

The article I read said that Sam trained every morning for 12 months. My hat goes off to her. I wasn’t that diligent. My training only started 4 months before the due time. It was a sudden decision that I chose to go.  However, I did train with my personal trainer and he was the one who arranged the trek for a group of 12 of us. We also had two nurses and our guide David, a fireman in his day job, who had already trekked Kokoda 7 times before leading our group. There was so much experience in medical and first aid which I was tres happy about. Even with all the training, nothing can prepare you for the actual track itself.

Besides the fact that I had to be medivac’d out because I slipped and broke my wrist (and needed surgery) 6 days in, missing the last day and a half of the trek, another member of our group had rolled his ankle on the first day into the trek and managed to walk 4 days on it before he was also medivac’d out, our group were quite fit and made the trek in record times (according to our guide).

Hype about Trekking Kokoda

The thing that upsets me the most is when there is so much hype about trekking Kokoda. Seriously folks. Get a grip on L-I-F-E!

We live in a fast paced world. Crossing the street can cause death. Driving a car can cause death. Stress can cause death. We are born, and one day, we die. Where and when that happens is not up to us. There are incidences where people die in their sleep even and sometimes, not just elderly people. Like Kurek Ashley says, If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Trekking Kokoda is perhaps perceived to be more dangerous than crossing the street in your local shopping centre. I slipped and fell many times while on the trek. I climbed the rugged edge of the mountain with only enough room for one at a time. Was I scared? Yes, in fact. Every time I lost concentration and thought about my kids and WHAT WAS I THINKING TREKKING KOKODA, I became weak and filled with emotion. Couldn’t this happen in any circumstance in our everyday lives? While we’re driving our cars maybe?

Life is a Challenge

The point I want to get across is that if we don’t challenge ourselves in life, when it’s time to go, we could be filled with regret at not having taken risks or enough risks while we had the chance to. Hearing people say that no-one should trek Kokoda and leave the local villagers to be invaded by mining company’s in my humble opinion is BS. It’s way too beautiful a landscape and also very historic to be dredged up by mines. When I am asked about the trek, I encourage everyone to do it. If not Kokoda, then another challenge which they will be proud of achieving.

Rest in Peace Samantha Killen and may your children grow to be proud of their mum who chose to take a risk and challenge herself to go and trek Kokoda.

God Bless

My site is being revamped and while the new Buzzing with Ange is under construction, I thought it may be a great idea to list some of the best and most visited posts that I have written to give you something to think about while waiting for the new look!

I will list them in categories for you so feel free to poke around and refresh yourselves with some favourites, some of my personal successes and some of my personal failures. They are all here.  Have fun and I will keep you updated with how the site is coming along. BTW, if you right click the links to open in a new tab, you can keep this list open

Personal Development

Personal Development and Wealth Creation

What Does Sex Have To Do With Success

Personal Development Can Turn Around An Idea Problem

Do You Think Too Much

My Greatest Personal Challenge To Date

Your Guide to Happiness 101

Falling In and Out of Love

Free Hugs/Humanity

Free Hugs Day in Melbourne

Free Hugs Day Melbourne Video

Humanitarian Initiative

Personal/Kokoda

I am an Adrenalin Junkie

My Excellent Kokoda Adventure:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Your Favourites

Of course if there is something I haven’t listed here that you really liked, please add the post url in your comment so that I can add it to this list.

Enjoy your reading and I’d like to hear your thoughts. I’m really looking forward to a new look Buzzing with Ange and will keep you posted on the progress.

I have some exciting news and a very worthwhile cause to tell you about today. Three very wise and humble bloggers have come up with a formula for helping the afflicted in Darfur, a region in Western Sudan.

In case you are not aware of the situation, over the past five years, 200,000 civilians have died due to violence, malnutrition, and disease in Darfur and an additional 2.2 million people have been displaced. These three bloggers want to do something about it.

I was introduced to Mark Hayward by way of this article - Pardon me, is that an arrow in your head? - whilst I was training for the Kokoda trek. Mark served in Papua New Guinea in the Peace Corps as a volunteer and has many stories to tell of his two year stint there.

Mark has teamed up with fellow bloggers Leo Babauta from Zen Habits, Dan Clements from Escape-101 and Andrew Flusche in this unique launch of an online non-profit humanitarian organisation:

TrainforHumanity.org - getting fit + social media + blogging = social good.

The three pilot project athlete-bloggers, Mark Hayward, Dan Clements, and Leo Babauta are hoping to raise awareness for the current crisis in Darfur and funds for the organization Darfur Peace and Development. All three are training for endurance events of varying distances ranging from a triathlon to a marathon.

You can help by:

• Spreading the word of this project by blogging about it - they do have a sample post which you could copy and paste if you wish to or write it your way.

• Sponsoring one or all of these athletes is another way to help. Their aim is to raise $50,000 for the cause as they train for their respective endurance events.

• Displaying a Train for Humanity badge on your site to raise awareness like the one in my far right sidebar.

Please consider doing what you can to help these gentleman reach their goal whether it be by raising awareness or sponsoring them and THANK YOU for taking the time to read this post.

By this stage I think you get the drift of how the trek went. The places we camped, the track itself and the challenges it presented. The emotional ups and downs. The fact that hygiene wasn’t all that flash with cold showers and no soap… and the sore feet!

Nevermind that we couldn’t get anything to really dry out fully and we would be putting on damp socks, tops and bottoms every day. It really was an adventure. One that I had never experienced before ever in my life and despite all these things, I really enjoyed the experience and knowing that anything is possible when your head is in the right place.

A couple of the highlights were swimming in the rivers. We would be glad to get our boots off and cool our feet down along with our weary bodies. It really did help for a while until we had to get going again off to our next destination.

Heartbreak on Day 6

WOW! Typing that headline has made all the emotions of that day come rushing back. Just like any other day, we were up early to get ready to take off at 6:30am. This day was a short one - 5 hours - as rather than stopping off for lunch at the usual place near the swamp not far from the village, we chose to keep going so that we arrived at our destination earlier leaving us most of the day to relax and re-coup for the next one and a half days to the finish. We were so close now!

Once again, we had to climb up a steep mountain onto Nauro. It is actually named The Nine False Peaks because we would climb a few hundred metres and then it would be flat for a while. Then there would be another steep climb and flat again. There were nine of these climbs as we headed up to camp at Nauro. That was really hard as it would give the sense of finishing the climb only to find another!

Once there, we had lunch and sat around relaxing, telling jokes and taking it in turns for the shower. It was my turn to head for the shower so I gathered my things and headed off. What happened next I couldn’t have ever imagined happening. Not to me anyway because I was always extra careful with my footing. But even the most careful steps cannot help when the ground is slippery.

My foot went from under me and I put my hand out to break my fall. I heard a snap. I stood up and noticed my right hand was like jelly. I’d broken my wrist. There was no mistake. My immediate thought was a word that sounds like FARK, and how was I going to finish the trek if I couldn’t hold onto my walking pole!!

I quickly rushed back up to the guesthouse and summoned Simone (a nurse) to take a look. She didn’t look happy. I couldn’t believe it. One and a half days to finish and here I was with a broken wrist!!!

David, our tour guide, quickly got onto the satellite phone to Port Moresby and arranged for a helicopter to come in and pick me up. This was around 2:30pm. The clouds roll in early making visibility difficult so he wasn’t taking any chances. It was also the last place on the track itself where a helicopter could land so there was no hesitation to call once he saw what had happened. If it had happened any further along, I would have to have been stretchered to the end as there was no other way out! Talk about an injured digger!

What a trouble maker I was. Everyone was fussing over me and it wasn’t long before my porter Armstrong came over to see for himself. He was just as heartbroken as we had by this stage built a bond and he knew what I was and wasn’t capable of. He had told me early on in the trek that his mother had told him that if he was ever a porter for a lady, that he would have to make doubly sure of helping her through it. He might as well have been attending a funeral the way he looked at me. So sad. The porters see this as an honour and a privilege to help trekkers along the track so it was totally devastating for him too.

Rescue Time

It didn’t take long for the chopper to arrive. I was given some pain killers and Simone wrapped a sling around my arm to hold it in place for the trip. Everyone, including the villagers, came up to the landing to see me off. I was still in shock and couldn’t believe that I was leaving my team behind. How silly I was to have fallen. Why did it have to happen to me. I wanted to finish. All the training I did. All the hours I spent to get fit for this trek. I didn’t want to be rescued off the track and taken to hospital!! It wasn’t fair. Me, me, me. It was all about me!

Don ‘t worry. That didn’t last long. Once up in the chopper and away from everyone, I realised that that was the end of my Kokoda trek.

Not the way I wanted it to happen, but we don’t always get what we want in life and that’s how it is. We make the best of what is dealt our way go with the flow making the very best of every opportunity. Facing the challenges head on and asking “what is great about this?” Just like Kurek Ashley says. This is a whole other post so I won’t go into detail here. Let me finish this story. The adventure is not over yet!

Port Moresby

Once back in Port Moresby, I was whisked off to the hospital. Two words here. TRAVEL INSURANCE! do not leave home without it no matter where you travel to. I was there for hours it seemed. I hadn’t eaten since lunch and by this stage, it was almost dinner time. Not that I was that hungry but the time had passed.

I saw the doctor and she immediately thought I would need surgery. She scribbled a note and told me to go to go and have an x-ray to determine her prognosis. She too was an adventurer and told me about her trekking and scuba diving. A pleasant lady.

The woman who was in charge of taking x-rays took a look at the note and asked if I had written it myself! I said to her, “does it look like I can write?” She said that the doctors note asked for x-rays of my leg - tibia and fibia - just as well I wasn’t going in for an amputation! Imagine!!

So we headed out to the portable in the car park as that is where the ancient x-ray machine was. Once taken, I could see the break and even to the untrained eye, it looked like a bad break. What had I done?

Back into the doctor with the x-rays and she confirmed that I would need surgery. Again, TRAVEL INSURANCE! She took me to the treatment room where I had a couple of shots for the pain and she put a cast on my arm so that I could travel. I had to be airlifted back to Australia as there was no way the travel insurance company would leave me there to have it done and just as well. Looking around that treatment room, their standards were no where near the standards of hospitals back home. I was happy to leave Papua New Guinea.

I spent the night at the hotel and the next morning, a private jet was waiting at the International airport to take me home back to my family. This was My Excellent Kokoda Adventure!

So by this stage of the story, if you haven’t kept up, you can read Part 1 and Part 2 to catch up. For those that have, I think you get the idea of how the trek actually went.

After the first couple of days, we were woken at 5:20am for the rest of the time to prepare ourselves and pack up our things having breakfast to get under way by 6:30am. We would trek anywhere between 3-4 hours up to 9 hours depending on the distance we needed to cover to get to the next campsite.

Now please note that this map is compressed (of course) but let me tell you that when we were climbing, they did feel that steep! You can find the original map here and if you follow this skitch link, you will be able to read the notations a little clearer. These notations mark the spots where we camped so it gives you an idea of where and how far we trekked each day.

There were places where I wished I never looked up as it would look so daunting… climbing through tree roots, up muddy steps, all twisted and tangled that the top was never in sight and just when you thought you had reached the top, you would come around a bend and then see there was more climbing ahead!

My breathing was very laborious going up and by day 4, the balls of my feet were aching. I never got blisters but I did tape up my feet to avoid getting any. I also used some cushioned padding under them to help and it did a little. I kept wondering how I would go for the rest of the trek. Sore feet seemed to be my only complaint which I was thankful for.

Muddy Boots!

Check out how muddy my boots would get each day! And when they did, they would also weigh a ton or that’s what it felt like.

Our respective porters would collect our boots once we had finished dinner, clean them, put them by the fire which they had going all night, so by morning we would have clean dry boots to put on again just to get them all muddied up again.

If we had wet clothes, they would also take them by the fire as nothing would dry otherwise. They couldn’t dry absolutely everything so this meant that the weight in our packs would also increase day by day which wasn’t a good thing. They managed though. I admire those men so much. Some were barefoot and some wore flip flops. Not all of them had boots. My Armstrong did but they were a couple of sizes too small for him so I left him my boots when I finished.

Sleeping Quarters

I mentioned that on the first night I slept in a tent but for the rest of the time, I opted to sleep in the guest houses along with the rest of our team. We were 7 girls and 5 guys and it was quite funny at times.

You can see in this picture that we all had head torches on. No power in these villages so a head torch was definitely the go!

Aside from a couple of the team who opted for the tents each night, the rest of us would set up our beds in one of these guest houses. Girls and guys all in together so you can imagine us trying to get changed and asking for headlights off or turning in the other direction so we could get dressed and undressed.

Another thing was that the showers (if you can call them that as some of them were just a tap rigged up high enough to stand under) were cold all except for one night which cost us five dollars each to have them boil up some water for a HOT shower. I was grateful for this as it had been 4 days since the last hot one!

So have I got you all excited yet… enough that you would like to go too? I’m just having a little fun. Without a sense of humour, you wouldn’t get through this thing. I’ll let you savour this post and leave the rest for the Grand Finale in a couple of days… promise I won’t stay away as long for the next one. I will also reveal why it has taken me this long to update you on how the trek was for me.

Until next post, keep smiling and have an excellent day!