WALK IT OUT A Kokoda Experience.  'For every walker, bush lover and history student'  Walk It Out A Kokoda Experience is a book filled with passion and respect for the wonderful land of Papua New Guinea and the people, the secrets that lurk behind every rainforest tree.  This book is full of Kokoda Track History!

Everyone has a dream that can bring up enormous amounts of fear as well as joy just thinking about it.  For Annie Clark, Walking Kokoda Track was not only her 'Mount Everest', it was her greatest fear.  This book takes you on Annie's journey. 

From pages 56 and 57 of WALK IT OUT - A Kokoda Experience.

An hour has passed since I wrote last.  I'm still sitting in the foyer of the Hideaway with the other trekkers.  We have to wait for the right conditions before we can take off from Port Jackson Airport.  I'm feeling a little impatient.  I know all of us want to get under way.  Some other guides come in and sort out their groups.  They stand next to Robert (our guide) and compare maps.  I see these people go off in a small bus and wonder when it will be out turn.

At last, after just over 5 hours wait, it's out turn.  We pile into the little bus and our driver takes us to Port Jackson Airport.  It's 11.30am.  I climb into a DHC-6-300 Twin Otter Plane, after waiting in an enclosed, cramped caged area for a further 15 minutes.  I sit up the back and two local men sit next to me.  Their body odour makes it hard for me to breathe deeply, but I just concentrate on the view out of the window.  We are all packed into the small plane like lamingtons in a tray, every seat is taken up.  The guys next to me look very serious.  What do they know about flying to Kokoda that I don't?  There are some local guys with us in the plane, but I'm not sure if they are going with our group.  My window has too many scratches on it, probably from previous passengers trying to escape!  So I resign myself to looking out the window rather than trying to take photos.

When you're packed into a small light aircraft with a pilot looking way too casual, flying over mountains and through clouds, surrounded by people you hardly know, you wonder if this is it!  "Will I live to tell the story?"  I convince myself it will be okay, that we will land safely and in 30-40 minutes we'll be on the track.  I'm so excited.  However, my back is beginning to spasm, and I'm wondering what I've done to deserve such pain.  Did I pick up the suit case on an angle?  Or is it because of the jolt I received a few days before (back in Cairns) when someone ran into my car?  I'll just have to deal with it.  Soon we are in the air, and the dry red earth below becomes a canvas of mountains and valleys.  I see silver snaking rivers around steep hills and tiny huts dotted along the river banks and on some of the mounds, smoke drifts up from the camp fires.  I am told the view looks much as it would have looked to the Australian pilots in B17's when they flew over this mountains to drop bombs on the Japenese all those years ago. 

The trees look like broccoli as they hug each other, forbidding me to see what they shelter.  I swallow dryly as I realise that I will be walking back through all of this.  It is daunting, but beautiful at the same time.  I sip my water, hug my bag and wait for the landing at Kokoda Village. 

Not just for people who want to walk the track.  Walk It Out A Kokoda Experience is an inspirational journey for anyone who is facing difficult times, decisions or circumstances.  Walk It Out A Kokoda Experience has a message for everyone.  Brush up on your history and the Kokoda campaign.  It wont take long before your hooked on the stories.  It is really something to be proud of when you realise that young men and the natives gave their lives for our freedom. 

For anyone contemplating walking the Kokoda Track, Walk It Out- A Kokoda Experience book is a must. 

• You will learn what to take,
• how to train
• what to buy to make your Kokoda experience more enjoyable. 
• An added bonus to this 'how to' is an introduction to the history of Kokoda and the 2nd World War and a detailed diary kept by Annie, that draws you into this unique experience.  Here is what some people say about this book.....

"I admire and respect Annie Clark for her courageous effort in overcoming her own mental and physical injuries by fulfilling her objective of walking the Kokoda Track.  She conquered her fears of failure and her story is told to honour the veterans who fought the previously undefeated Japanese army which planned to capture Port Moresby and its port and airfields.  A stepping Stone to Australia.  Stan Bisset, Kokoda Veteran of the 2/14th Battalion. 

For most people the prospect of walking the Kokoda Track would be daunting.  Walking the track was Anne’s way of honouring the noble and brave men and women who lost their lives during the Kokoda campaign beginning in July 1942.

66 years later on the 5th July 2008, Anne  began her walk on the Kokoda Track with nine other trekkers and her new book Walk It Out - A Kokoda Experience tells a little about  ‘Australia’s history. If you are not up to the physical challenge then sit back in a comfortable chair at home and read this book, you will feel like you have been there by the time you finish.