His comfort zone is a weekend barbecue with beers, and until recently, he had no plans to change how he lived his life.

Today he laughs as he reflects on how a conversation about a Bucket List goal has changed his life. It was not his Bucket List, it was the list of Mel Owen, his friend and work colleague at James Strong Packaging in Kolodong. That conversation became a decision to take part in the 48km Kokoda Challenge in the Gold Coast Hinterland on July 14 and 15.

That was about six months ago and since then he has had to step outside his comfort zone and into national parks and State forests to do day and night training hikes of 10km, 20km and 30km.

Mel’s Bucket List goal also inspired Rod Douglass, Deb Mayers, Donna Wilson, Mike Wood, Anthony Drury and Natalie Drury to sign on to hike 48km in 33 hours through mountainous terrain. They formed two teams, Midnight Madness and Night Warriors, and are now asking the community to support their fundraising goal. Collectively they want to raise at least $1500 for the Kokoda Youth Foundation and its programs that focus on mentoring and training young people. 

Mel will turn 40 in August and the milestone birthday served as the catalyst to do the Kokoda Challenge. The fact that she had no bushwalking or endurance event experience did not deter her from thinking “this looks good” when she saw the event promoted on Facebook.

Fortunately, one of their number, Mike Wood, had bushwalking experience and so the group rallied to develop training plans and buy new gear for the event. Training started in December and in the months that have followed the teams have walked trails and steep terrain all over the Manning Valley and Great Lakes. It has not been without incident or injury but Ian says everyone will be “prepared to support each other through the mental and physical challenges of the event.”

“We are not in it to win it because there is nothing to win,” Ian laughed. “I like to think of it as a leisurely walk through horrible national park and we’ve got 33 hours to do 48 kilometres.”

Mel said the event was “as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge” - particularly with the need to walk during the night - and Ian hopes the fact that many of the team members are shift workers will be an advantage.

“We are used to being awake at night,” he said.

“It's the decisions you make while you are walking at night that brings a lot of people undone. The trick is to not look up at the stars while you are walking because you tend to fall over!” Ian explained.

“Headlamp down, focus on where you are going and if you want to look at the stars, stop walking!

Training for the Kokoda Challenge has physically changed Mel and Ian, they are both fitter, but it’s also changed how they see the world.

“We are becoming weird people because I was driving down the highway and I said to Anthony (Midnight Madness team member), every hill I see I now wonder if I could climb it!

“What is going on in my head now? Before I’d drive on the highway and not even notice the hill, now I wonder how you get up there,” Ian laughed.

The event is about six weeks away and team members will now start to ease off training distances to ensure no injuries. The main focus now is fundraising and they invite people to donate at https://kokodachallenge.com/donate-online; submit either team name in the website form details to ensure the donation is allocated to their fundraising total. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The Wynter Tavern in Taree is supporting the teams and will host a fundraising event on June 23 from 7pm. Donations have also been received from Taree Leagues Men’s Bowling Club, Viison Kitchens and Bakewell Haulage.