Nothing is ever silent. Ever. Except perhaps in space but I have no point of reference for that experience and so have no capacity to comment. There can be a stillness, but never silence. There is that moment that sluices into seconds and the feeling of a lifetime of ages when a zealot of some…
The old man picked his way up the long road from Verdun. He skirted mules carrying bread, horse drawn wagons full of supplies, the endless procession of coughing munitions trucks and the equally endless procession of ambulances creeping back the other way. No one tried to stop him. He had been here before and they…
The museums around Ho Chi Minh City can be derelict but at least there is an appreciation of the role various artifacts have played in the history of the city. That is especially the case when you are talking military artifacts. Port Moresby boasts the worst kept collection of military paraphernalia I have seen. And…
Sitting around the pool the day after walking/flying out of Kokoda was a surreal and dislocative experience. Fraudulent even. Here we were sitting in comparative luxury, able to flop into a tepid pool if we felt too sticky. And yet we had some claim, we felt, to some ownership of the Track. After all we…
Melodious bird song gets our day started. Another tune and another bird I have never heard before. The cloud hands heavy in the valley and for a few moments we are concerned about whether any flights will happen today. Then a couple of purple green peaks float into view and disappear again in the washed…
We are in something of a slow daze and tents are being set up in Kokoda at a rate that is the slowest I have seen for the whole trip. We swim through a humid wall and move slowly after coming out of the cool air of the mountains. But I am getting ahead of…
The surf fades and I sleep the sleep of a teenager. Helped by the fact that I think we have found the best patch of grass so far. We are all still having those lucid dreams. When I surface it is to the sound of the creek, and light has already steeped into the valley.…
Don’t take your malaria tablets before eating! Not the salt tablets after all. Anyway, got the stomach purged in time to get breakfast in and staying down. Attempting any work up here on an empty stomach as I tried the other day would be a mistake. It was a mistake. Just prior to retiring last…
