Ph 3259 1900 (24 hours) - Queensland Police Union

The Kokoda Challenge
nervous people wearing the same
camel backs, hiking poles, and skins.
This event must keep Anaconda and
other sport stores in business for the
year.
“It is hilarious to
watch the competitors
in new shoes timidly
tiptoeing over
puddles, trying to
keep their shoes
clean. Little do they
know what they will
confront throughout
the Challenge.”
Chris Tritton, Craig McGrath, Rod Cornick, Cameron Bourke.
We move off to the start line to the
sounds of John William’s ‘True Blue’.
The song induces goose bumps as we
contemplate the time we had spent
away from our families training, and
then consider the real diggers who
didn’t do this for fun.
The final clincher before the start is
a young man from Miami High who
plays the last post on his trumpet. This
silences the 3,000 competitors and
huge crowd in attendance. At the end
of the last post, a World War II digger
reads the ode and at the end the crowd
repeats his words: ‘We will remember
them; lest we forget’.
The crowd again breaks into a hive
of built-up nervous tension and a
quick stretching of quads and calves,
because the starting gun is about to
go off. We are away to the sounds of
cheers and clapping.
0 – 29.4KM
The feeling in the group is one of
excitement as we start along a
bitumen road before moving into a
suburban park which is boggy from
the constant rain.
It is hilarious to watch the competitors
in new shoes timidly tiptoeing over
puddles, trying to keep their shoes
clean. Little do they know what
they will confront throughout the
Challenge.
We make it to the first checkpoint, and
this is where we enter the bushland
for the first time. We head through
Mudgeeraba forest, Austinville, and
Mt Nimmel, which has some very high
mountains. The mud is so thick on the
mountains that it is sliding down like a
lava river.
Unfortunately, the thick, slippery mud
causes Cameron to experience severe
back pain in the form of spasms,
related to pre-existing herniated disk
issues.
It is our goal to finish as a full team,
but we can’t risk Cameron getting a
permanent injury. We suspect he has
no option but to withdraw.
At the 29.4 kilometre mark, we come
down into Polly’s Kitchen, a major
checkpoint. This is where we are first
fed by our support crew.
We are in reasonably high spirits,
but are feeling more fatigued than
we should be due to the heavy mud.
After taking more anti-inflammatories,
Cameron’s back is no better, and he
reluctantly withdraws from the event.
29.4KM – ARMY LAND
We say goodbye to Cameron and
our support crew and head off for
the next stage over Polly’s and to the
Numinbah Environment Centre.
“There is thick mud
everywhere, so much
so that it grabs hold of
my walking pole and
breaks it in half.”
There is thick mud everywhere, so
much so that it grabs hold of my
walking pole and breaks it in half. It is
just starting to get dark as we arrive,
and we rely on headlamps until the
morning.
We now take on seven creek crossings
where we are just over our knees in
fast-running mountain water, but it is
like putting ice on our sore toes and
also a chance to wash the kilo or so
of thick mud off our shoes, which has
been adding extra weight.
We arrive at Numinbah Hall for dinner
with the support crew and at this point
we are on our projected time schedule.
Queensland Police Union Journal August 2012
41