Things to Do in Kokoda Track

Village homestay at Naduri

At Naduri, schoolteacher Mr. Kila keeps a spare room where you will fall asleep to the smell of kaukau roasting in coconut shells and wake to women pounding yam. From his verandah you can watch the morning mist peel off the mountains like a sheet, and someone always brings sweet tea thick with condensed milk.

Dawn at Isurava battlefield

Steel plaques line the clearing where you can still pick up.303 shells in the dirt. The air up here is thin and carries the faint tang of eucalyptus from the surrounding gums. Stand on the rock that marks the Australian mortar pit and you will hear nothing but wind riffling through pitpit grass - it is eerily quiet for a place once so loud.

Swim in the Brown River

On day-one you will cross the Brown River on a wire suspension bridge that bounces like a trampoline; below, the water runs the colour of milky coffee and feels silk-warm against tired calves. Kids appear from nowhere to dive off fallen trees, whooping as they hit the surface and sending droplets that taste faintly of leaf tannin.

Fresh scones at Efogi II

In Efogi II a clay oven sits behind the trade store. By 7 am the baker slides out scones speckled with firewood ash, still steaming and tasting faintly sweet like damper. Buy two, slather them with peanut butter from a tin the size of a paint can, and eat while watching clouds spill over the ridge opposite.

Sunset lookout between Nauro and Menari

Halfway up the 'Golden Stairs' there is an informal rest spot where the track briefly pops onto bare ridge rock. Sit here at dusk and you will see both the Moresby haze far left and, right, the dark wall of Mount Victoria catching last light. Cicadas throttle down, replaced by the soft clap of fruit-dove wings returning to roost.

Kokoda Station guesthouse - tin-roof rooms overlooking the airstrip where you will hear planes buzz before first light

Isurova community huts - grass mats on split-bamboo floors, shared pit toilet but stars so bright they cast shadows

Efogi I ridge lodge - elevated wooden verandah catches valley breezes and the smell of distant wood-fires

Kagi eco-lodge - solar shower bags hung in coffee trees, patchouters humming around the shared dining bench

Menari school hall - mattresses lined on polished floorboards, wake to the clang of the breakfast bell

Owers Corner bush camp - tents on red clay, dawn chorus of scrub fowl scratching through leaf litter