By CASEY NEILL
“WE want to make a difference to a group of people whose ancestors helped ours.”
So Mark Capper and his wife Julie will travel to Papua New Guinea in September and trek the Kokoda Track.
But their journey won’t be the usual pilgrimage many Australians make each year.
Mr Capper first completed the trek in 2008, and raised money in honour of a friend who’d passed away.
“When I finished that first trek I said I’d never go back there again,” he said.
“But something got me inside. I fell in love with the area, the people.
“They’ve got nothing and yet they’ll give you everything they can to make sure you’re happy and cared for.”
He returned in 2010 with Julie by his side, but they were airlifted out on their third day.
“She talked herself out of being able to do it,” he said.
In 2012 they returned and finished the trek, and have wanted to go back ever since.
“Many Australians use their trek to raise money for causes back home – all very worthy – but most people forget that the people of the Kokoda Track area also need our help,” Mr Capper said.
One in 12 children in Papua New Guinea dies before their fifth birthday.
“Kids that survive past the age of five are confronted every day with the daily struggles of living in a third world country and this is even more exaggerated in rural areas,” he said.
Mr Capper said the country was rebuilding schools and training teachers, but still lacked basic supplies.
“The kids along the Kokoda Track are direct descendants of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels and it is very well-known that our Diggers received much-needed support and comfort from them during the Japanese attacks in 1942,” he said.
So the Cappers are taking classroom supplies to distribute to schools along their journey – the Trek 4 Education.
The bulk will go to a school in Kagi, the village where most of the porters they’ve travelled with live.
“It’s a large school in the centre of four villages,” he said.
The Cappers are also donating money to the Kokoda Track Foundation, which awards scholarships and provides classroom supplies.
The couple has been hitting the gym and regularly completing hikes in national parks to prepare.
“You have to be mentally fit as well as physically fit because you are isolated for quite a considerable time,” Mr Capper said.
“The mountains that we climb, they have what they call false peaks.
“You think you’re at the top and you look up and there’s another hour of climbing.
“It does drain you.”
The Cappers are looking for more people to join them on the journey, as well as donations.
“We just want to make a difference,” he said.
“We’ve always been the type of people to try and help others.”
They’ll hold a fund-raiser, the Factis non Verbis cocktail party, at Dandenong RSL on 3 May.
It will feature speakers and guests from the 39th Battalion Association, which served in Kokoda, entertainment, prizes and more.
Call Mark on 0481 256 311 or Julie on 0411 530 464 to book a ticket, make a donation or join the trek.
