The Smells of Kokoda.

Published: August 17, 2009
The Smells of Kokoda.

“It is better to die in flames, than to shit on angry bees” – Confucius

I finished the Kokoda track two weeks ago.

People have become too blasé about that trek. And while it’s sad that those Aussies died last week, it requires the odd death here and there to keep to concept of adventure alive.

Imagine if it was an easy walk to the top of Everest? Or a downhill ski to the South Pole?

And while I feel sorry for those who lost friends and family last week, we should remember that to die doing something we love is the best we can hope for.

However, I also feel really sad for the people who died – as those poor bastards will never get to appreciate the awkward pleasure that is shitting on a nest of angry bees.

…………

It was some time between midnight and sunrise, and I was somewhere between Port Moresby and Kokoda, in the middle of an overbearing jungle. There were several things attributing to my discomfort, and the first was Spam – the salted snout-and-trotters in a can variety, not unwanted emails about penis pills.

Number two was green Staminaide powder. When two people this year had already died on the track from a thing called hyponatremia (a lack of electrolytes) – suddenly sports drinks become a vital necessity for the first time in their existence and not just for pouring onto football coaches after winning a game.

Number three, was the gastronomic combination of discomforts one and number two. I had eaten nothing but spam, vita-weets and pasta for the last 5 days, I had drunk water of dubious quality from dubious jungle streams, and mixed sugary, salty green powder into most of it.

I sat up in my tent clutching my guts moaning “AARRUGG” sounding like Schwarzenegger before he could handle modern English. My stomach cramps had gotten to the point of actually waking me up, and I had to shit so badly it felt like I had 34 angry platupie all trying to escape the confines of my colon.

We city kids have absolutely no idea of discomfort. We think that public transport after a few beers is uncomfortable. We think a run in with your ex while you’re with your current… is uncomfortable. Even the majority of theatre chairs can be classed as fucking uncomfortable – But I’m afraid not. That’s fucking pleasant by comparison to that bloody fucking track.

But back to the poo at hand…

First, a description of a Kokoda long-drop, for I’m guessing most of you haven’t crapped in anything like this before: Imagine if you will, a square-ish pit, about 1.5meters by 1.5meters, and about 3 meters deep. Filled about halfway up with molten feces and a few blowflies for good measure. Across the top of this pit are a series of thin trees, lashed together with vines to make a mostly sturdy lid. And in the middle of this lid, is a hole to the delights below, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Much to the horror of my sister, that’s literally it. You bust a squat over that hole and pray for solids.

At each camp-site (aka, rare flat bit of ground) along the track there are usually 2 of these long drops. I’d encountered them while setting up my tent that afternoon, and both prospects were somewhat alarming. Crapper A had appeared normal; however a fellow trekker had advised me that whilst squatting earlier, he heard a crack and his left foot had dropped about 3 inches into one of the rotten logs. Yes, the floor on which you rest your faith, above a pit of shit, was rotting.

On this gem of advice, I’d gone to the other pit, only to discover an ominous buzzing sound emanating from the palm-frond privacy screen. Bees. Hundreds of fucking bees. Buzzing around the hole, because it seems the bee civil-planner had decided that a top spot for a hive was inside a pit toilet, right next to the hole. All I had to do was take a piss at the time, so I tentatively slashed into the hole cum bee thoroughfare. They seemed fairly acclimatised to this event, nonetheless I didn’t dawdle, repackaged my junk and fled.

Now, rolling in my sleeping bag like an epileptic newborn, I had to rather more than just piss, so I was faced with three options: Option A entailed me falling through a rotten log and into a pit of human excreta in the middle of the night, in the middle of the jungle, 5 hours helicopter ride from the nearest 3rd world hospital – Pass.

Option B involved me dangling my nutsack literally 3 inches from a live bee’s nest, while I shat on them. – Pass Option C was that I walk down the nearby near vertical slope next to camp – we were on top of a ridge – and dump in the jungle. – Pass Now C might seem like a good choice, but the fact of the matter is that a real jungle at night is not where you want to be. It comes alive. There are spiders quite literally bigger than your hand. 1 in 3 mosquitoes carry malaria. And you actually see glowing, blinking yellow eyes in the jungle when you shine your torch up into the hills. I wish I was kidding, it’s fucking terrifying.

So being spurred into action by my angry sphincter, I decided that I was going to try my luck with door bee, as a quick deduction and science told me that a sting on the goolies is temporary, whereas a spider bite is usually fatal, and malaria is for life. And getting eaten alive mid shit, in the dark, by whatever the fuck is out in that jungle doesn’t sound like fun either.

So with a sigh of acceptance I got out of my sleeping bag, donned my head-torch, grabbed my bog-roll, laced up my boots and stepped out into the night and walked quickly through the black mountain mist towards the buzzing shitter.

Sweet Moses, that’s a lot of bees! At night, even above the peak of insect din, I could clearly hear the swarm of bees from a good 5 meters away…and I’m going to take a dump right in the thick of them. Yep. I switched off my mind, straddled the hole, dropped my trackies, and lowered my yam-bag and apprehensively puckering asshole down into the bees nest. My tumultuous guts needed little encouragement as an unholy deluge of spicy brown soup belted out of me like a geyser. Spluttering and popping like an old tractor engine, I closed my eyes and pushed. A few bees landed on my quivering, exposed cheeks.

Opening my watering eyes, I uncoiled from my tense poise and took a few unpleasant lung fulls of colostomy air and took stock of my situation. There were fucking bees flying around everywhere and I even spotted an intrepid pollenator hiking along my dangling trunk.

To say I lacked attention to detail in the clean-up phase of the movement is a gross understatement; I wanted the fuck out of that bee pit as soon as possible. In the time it took me to stand up, swat away the lingering cheek bees and pull up my trackies with one hand, the other had wiped and discarded. I was out of that hut and back to my tent faster than a anaphylactic fit.

Shitting on bees (as part of the Kokoda trip) was easily the most rewarding and truly overwhelming thing you’ll ever achieve as an everyman. It’s uncomfortable and a mile from the nearest comfort zone, but what that place holds in terms of beauty, significance and honour can only be truly appreciated by those who’ve experienced it.

Rohan Venn