Cora Wilson is back into the academic pressure cooker, from where she still looks back on her school holiday trip to the Kokoda as “surreal”.
The Year 11 St Jospeh’s College student was an inaugural recipient of a Colin Sinclair Scholarship — a local program established by State Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh to send young people from his electorate to walk the Kokoda Trail.
Colin Sinclair was a Rochester local — his family still lives there today — who fought and died in Papua-New Guinea during the Kokoda campaign.
The scholarship has been designed 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.
Cora was funded by Moama Bowling Club, in conjunction with the Moama RSL sub-branch, on behalf of their members in particular and the wider community in general, enabling her to get a first-hand understanding of this heroic but incredibly tragic part of Australian history.
Moama RSL sub-branch president Ken Jones said without the “generous funding from Moama Bowling Club” vital community programs such as these would not be possible.
“When we approached Moama Bowling Club the immediate support we received was amazing, and it helped us send two local students on the trip — an incredible opportunity,” he says.
“It meant Cora was able to join four other Year 11 students from the region on this year’s trek.
“While we wanted the teenagers to be excited about the whole trip, to be looking forward to going overseas, and to the things they would see and do there, at the same time we wanted to make sure they understood why they really went there.
“To honour the memory of the many, too many, young Australians who went before them, died there and are still there, that is why we are running these scholarships.
‘’These young men made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the freedom we have come to expect.
“It is our hope these young people will come home and share their time in PNG, what they have learnt from it and encourage others to try it as well.”
Cora described the whole experience as something “like you’ve never seen before”.
She said apart from the stunning scenery the people themselves were an amazing and enchanting part of the journey.
“Even when there was the language barrier, we still found a way to communicate and connect with the kids we met along the trail, and in the villages where we camped overnight,” Cora said.
“And when we had a very moving Dawn Service at Isurava, the scene of one of the Kokoda campaign’s biggest battles, our porters sang their national anthem; and their obvious pride for their country was inspiring.
“Embodying the spirit of mateship; the instant bond I made with the other trekkers is something you'd never experience in your day-to-day life.
“The emotional factor really creeps up on you, initially you are unaware of the connection you are making while walking in the footsteps of those young Australian soldiers — it’s a feeling you can't describe yet completely overwhelms you.
“Then, your own personal feeling of accomplishment at the end, making it through those arches, it’s something I will treasure forever.”
On her trip Cora also represented Private Bruce McDonald from Gunbower, who died on Christmas Day, 1942 and now is buried at Bomana War Cemetery.
He had been working as a farm labourer when he enlisted at age 21, having already served 12 months in the reserves, and like many from northern Victoria he joined the 2/14 th Battalion and went on to serve in the Middle East before returning to Australia and being deployed to PNG.
“Sadly, like many who served there, it was not the bullets of the Japanese that would take Private McDonald’s life,” Cora said.
“He was sent to the Northern Beaches campaign and on December 14 was hospitalised with scrub typhus, to which he succumbed on December 25, 1942.
“Even worse, this illness, scrub typhus, was often a painful death, and Private McDonald was just 21 when he died, only a few years older than me and a long way from the peaceful banks of the Murray.”