We came quite prepared when it came to cooking. We carried a Trangia stove, which I personally consider one of the best all round camp cooking devices. The fuel for these, Methylated Spirits, can be bought from the general store at Kokoda.(airlines generally do not allow these types of inflammable liquids to fly).
I also carried a classic army style aluminium stove with heximine tablets.
After all this preparation, we never ended up using either of these. We quickly found out that a camp fire is obligatory every night ! As soon as we hit a campsite, Tony (our guide) would light a fire and start cooking dinner on same. We paid $5 Kina to the village each night for wood.
Still, it was good having the Trangia as it gave us the cooking pots/pans we needed !
In addition to this, in many of the villages, the locals offered to cook a hot meal for us. The food was generally Sweet Potato, Choko Vine and fresh fruit, at a charge of $5 Kina. This tasted great after days of freeze dried food. Based on how keen the locals were to cook for us, I think we could have carried half the food we did !
As a side note, a good thing was that PNG customs did not worry about any of our freeze dried food, peanut butter, dried fruit, muesli bars and nuts entering the country from Australia. Much cheaper buying these items in Australia than PNG.
This blog has been set up to cover the training and actual Kokoda walk for Rick and Andrew Klink
I appreciate all of the information that you have shared. keep up the good work!Thanks for sharing such beneficial information with us.
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