Layne Trevena is looking at life in downtown Echuca-Moama with a whole new perspective since he returned from his walk along the historic Kokoda Trail during the school holidays.
The Year 11 St Joseph’s College student says walking in the footsteps of the young Australian soldiers — “many of them not much older than me” — who fought the Japanese invasion to standstill in those hellish mountainous conditions, has significantly changed his outlook on a lot of things.
“It has given me a real sense of appreciation for what I have in my everyday life, much of which I have sort of taken for granted because it has always been there,” Layne said.
“I felt such a sense of accomplishment when I walked through the arch that makes the official end of the trail in Kokoda itself.
“I had always seen this as a challenge but did not realise just how much it would help me develop my mental toughness.”
Layne was an inaugural recipient of a Colin Sinclair Scholarship, to provide young future leaders with the opportunity to immerse themselves in a significant part of Australian history and then come home and spread that message.
His trip was sponsored by Moama Bowling Club — and was one of two scholarships it supported as part of its strong community commitment.
Layne joined four other Year 11 scholarship holders from across the region in making the tip.
He said he had done a fair bit of research on the demands of the trek, but the reality hits home when you start putting one foot in front of the other.
“But whenever you weren’t watching your step, and took time to look up at the mountains, and all around you, it was the most spectacular scenery, and it seemed to change every day,” Layne said.
“The people along the trail were also amazing, and the children we met are the happiest kids I’ve ever seen although they didn’t have a lifestyle anything like ours.
“We walked 138km in nine days, starting from Owers Corner and heading to Kokoda, where we caught the plane back to Port Moresby and the home.
“It was an amazing experience I’ll never forget, and I am very grateful for the support of Moama Bowling Club for helping get me there.”
Layne also rates his visit to Bomona War Cemetery in Port Moresby as a sobering highlight of his trip, where he represented the family and community of Koondrook’s Thomas Doolan.
Private Doolan, in the 2/14 Battalion, barely lasted two weeks once he arrived in PNG in 1942.
After enlisting as a 25-year-old, the unmarried labourer saw service in the Middle East before his battalion was urgently recalled to Australia with the Japanese so close.
“Private Doolan landed at Port Moresby on August 12 and was dead on August 30 — it’s an incredibly tragic tale and was for so many of those young soldiers,” Layne said.