Surviving Kokoda

We received a brief from John Walters at Ingram Micro which announced the competition, and we won one of the tickets based on our sales targets.

It was a very exciting prize to go for. Ingram were releasing figures on how we were going throughout the time and we knew we were in with a chance for most of the competition.

"When we found out we had won there was lots of excitement around the office. There were two people that had hoped to go and they were very excited about going, but they couldn't make it so I took up the offer instead.

Maureen Henderson, Downs MicroSystems

Some of the downs were just as hard as the ups. One of the toughest bits was when we were walking down the hill and I said to one of the guys mate there's no way we are going to get there before dark, then the next minute it was stop guys, put your head torches on.

You finish the last hour and a half in the dark down this treacherously steep hill in mud in the dark with head torches on. We got to the bottom and had to walk up the side of a river which was a pretty sheer hill with a path a footstep wide and then cross the river. But all the river crossings were just a felled log.

So, pitch black, fast running river, wet muddy feet, a head torch on, and you had to go across the river with a backpack on. Mate if anyone had fallen in they would have been gone. God knows how no-one did.

When I passed the gates at Ower's corner I said there's no way I'd ever go back on that godforsaken track, and two weeks later I'm planning to take my boys out there. As an experience it's really hard to put in words how much you got from it, it was just mentally, physically and emotionally very challenging and rewarding. You learnt a lot about people and teamwork and how you worked together.

The jungle - it's very rainforest, ferny undergrowth and straggling trees. Most of the time you're down in the forest itself and the next minute you pop out and  you're on top of this hill with a majestic view across the mountains. Until you pop out you could have been down in middle of the valley - you have no idea because the jungle is so complete around you.

The Anzac ceremony was very special. When we flew up to Efogi village this guy Malcolm turned up [with the tour organisers] and he was a bit quiet and shady about who he was and why he was there.

He disappeared on Anzac morning really early and no-one noticed. We took off early and had a battle briefing on Mission Ridge, one of the other battle sites on our way up there, and as we came up on Brigade Hill the bagpipes started. [Malcolm was standing in full kilt uniform on top of the hill, playing the bagpipes.] That was pretty amazing.

There was a little bamboo stick with a red ribbon in it for every guy that died there. All the porters and the team stood around this plaque looking out over the valley, and we did the ceremony up there which was very, very moving.

They did a prayer, a poem that was written about [the fuzzy wuzzy angels]. The porters sang the national anthem of Papua New Guinea - those guys can seriously sing.

I mean these are a bunch of male porters but mate when they sang the national anthem it was just unbelievable. Then we croaked away the Aussie one. Afterwards we went down and had morning tea and then kept walking.

Craig Somerville, Somerville IT

Group One did it fast, Group Two were slower. I jumped into Group Two on the second day to say g'day and socialise with everybody. Some people were in a bit of trouble because it is a very physically and mentally challenging time.

You had to watch out for heat exhaustion. Some who admitted they hadn't trained properly. Others gave up mentally and couldn't move forward. You just had to pep them up, keep them positive, get the right liquids and sugar in them and just talking them up a hill or through a stretch of the track that was difficult.

We were doing 600-900 metre ascents, there were stretches that go straight up. Some were not hills they were frigging mountains. One of the areas was called nine false peaks, and I think we invented nine swear words going up there. It literally keeps going up.