![]() Zoltan Maklary was in his, listening to his iPod. Smoke from the cooking fires swirled around the campsite as rice bubbled in pans of water. It was often rainy up here in the high hills, and nobody minded-that was part of the adventure. The rain stopped, and Rod Clarke and a few other clients emerged. “I need to sleep!” Matthew Gibob, another porter, flopped down next to Rarovu. King had known him for years, and as she horsed around with him and other porters under the tarps, she stood where he was trying to set up his bed. Porter Kerry Rarovu, hungover, just wanted to crash. The porters started a fire and put water on to boil. The clients quickly disappeared into their tents to change into warm, dry clothes. They slashed and cut and cut and slashed-the legs of almost every porter, slicing their calves and Achilles tendons, chopping so fiercely that bones shattered. For themselves they strung a silver-colored tarp from the trees. In a cold drizzle, the porters went to work, setting up an orange tent for each trekker. ![]() they’d made the first campsite, at Banis-Donki, a clearing set amid thick jungle with the trail entering and exiting at either end. The clients ranged in age from their early forties to 67, but King was surprised by their high level of fitness. They’d started walking at six that morning, through an epic landscape that began as steep hills covered in high grasses. The 39-year-old Australian had just finished her first day leading seven Australian men, one New Zealander, and 19 local porters on a planned six-day trek in Papua New Guinea, from the highlands down to the coast, along the Black Cat Track, an arduous, precipitous, and overgrown 42-mile trail first opened by Aussie gold miners in the 1920s and later the site of one of Australia’s most harrowing battles in World War II. on Monday, September 9, 2013, and King was basking in the glow of a well-ordered campsite. States of grace can be elusive, but Christy King had found hers, if only for a moment. ![]()
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