a sharp deviation. He used his considerable experience to enter the field of Executive Performance coaching when he, with his wife Rowena, set up their coaching business, Minds Aligned. However, while he led an interesting, if somewhat unconventional lifestyle, he was unfortunate to suffer several health issues.
His approach in addressing these health issues was characteristically different, and in 2006, in an effort to be mentally and physically prepared for a medical treatment program, he walked the Kokoda Track. It was during that trek he first heard of the Black Cat Track, and it instantly appealed to him, but it would be seven years before he would have the opportunity to take on the new trek:
Life events got in the way, and each year when I would start to plan some other thing would interfere. A lot to do with family and the death of my parents, one in NZ and the other in the UK. Then I had a massive angina attack in November 2011, which resulted in my having a stent fitted in January 2012, which knocked me about a bit.7
Nick would be further ‘knocked about’ in March 2013, when he suffered a heart attack. Nevertheless, he remained determined to continue with his plans regarding the Black Cat:
I had spoken of the track for all of that time, and at the end of 2012 I committed to doing it in September of 2013. I felt my integrity was at stake if I failed to do it. In preparing for it I invited over twenty-three of my friends who I respected, guys that I wanted to have an adventure with, to participate. But apart from Steve Ward, none of the others took it up, telling me I was nuts …8
When the Victorian-based trekkers finally met Steve Ward, the first thing that struck them was his massive calf muscles and his tattoos. At the age of forty-six, Steve Ward was the youngest member, and the second Queenslander, in the trekking group. Another former soldier, Steve had joined the Army in 1984 at the tender age of sixteen, as an Army Apprentice. After graduation he was allocated to the Corps of Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and completed a further fourteen years of service.
On leaving the Army, Steve used his military skills to gain employment in a calibration workshop, before moving into the totally unrelated field of hospitality. He became the owner and operator of a Gloria Jean’s coffee house. Over time, he and his wife Merryn developed this enterprise, eventually opening a second Gloria Jean’s coffee house, before selling both of these facilities and opening their own independent espresso bar. In fact, it was through his coffee house that Steve came to join the trek. Early in 2013, Nick Bennett had popped in for a brew and the two had chatted about the Black Cat. Steve Ward:
I knew that he had recently had a heart attack and was on the road to recovery. He had said to me a few years previous that he was interested in doing the Black Cat, and I said when he decided to do it I would go with him. So I stuck by my word and we started training about seven months out from the trek departure.9
Rod Clarke was a late addition to the Melbourne-based group. A friend of Pete Stevens and swimming coach of Pete’s wife Dee, he was asked to join the group in February 2013. Initially, he had concerns regarding the cost of the trek, but on further consideration he agreed to join. He had always enjoyed camping and an outdoor lifestyle, and as a young man this had led him to a career in agriculture and employment in New Guinea:
I had a passion for farming and so my aunt suggested I go to Dookie Agricultural College, which I did from 1964 to 1966, and gained my Dookie Diploma of Agriculture. From 1967 to 1973 I worked as a Rural Development Officer for the Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries, in the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea. I started off in Laiagam in the far west of the Western Highlands, then moved to lonely Margarima in the Southern Highlands. I spent my last three years in Mount Hagen, back in the Western Highlands, where I was both the district and the local Rural Development Officer.10
In 1973, Rod returned to Australia and worked briefly for the firm Economic Wool Producers as a wool sales representative, before accepting a position as a Plant Pathologist with the Victorian Department of Agriculture, where he worked from 1974 until 2001. During 2001 he took an early retirement, and for three years filled his time competing in triathlete events. This diversion from work ended in 2007 when he returned to employment, working part-time for Envirotechniques, a company that specialises in Bush Management projects.
Rod continued his interest in sport and in keeping fit through swimming and coaching for the Doncaster Dolphins Masters Swimming Club, and the YMCA’s Aquarena adult squads at the Doncaster pool. At the age of sixty-seven, Rod was the elder statesman of the trekking group, a fact his younger Victorian-based companions took delight in reminding him. During preparation training for the trek, he was able to demonstrate he was arguably one of the fittest. He was also one of the better informed on issues regarding PNG:
I’d been a bit of a student of Papua New Guinea. I’ve collected PNG stamps, I’ve got shelves full of books on the place, and the people I know up there ring me all the time — I’ve become more confident over the years in speaking pidgin, not only face-to-face but over the phone, and reading it. So this trip was going to be really exciting for me; I was looking forward to it.11
The final member of the trekking group was forty-nine-year-old Gary Essex. Originally from the Victorian town of Yarrawonga, on completing school he attended the University of Melbourne, where he gained a Bachelor of Commerce in 1985. He commenced work with the firm Coopers & Lybrand in January 1985 as an auditor, progressing to the role of audit manager by 1990, and in 1991 became a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. In 2000 he was admitted as partner in the Albury Wodonga accounting practice of Johnsons MME.
In his younger days Gary played a lot of sport, but on retiring from competitive sport he found he missed the activity. He began to search for another outlet that would hold his interest and maintain a healthy level of physical fitness. Trekking filled this need, and in 2010 he and his brother Trevor walked the Kokoda Track. Gary enjoyed the trek immensely and found that it triggered another interest, that of military history. The tour guide on that occasion was Pam Christie of PNG Trekking Adventures. On returning to Australia, Gary found he was yearning for another PNG adventure, so he contacted Pam, seeking her advice:
I was interested in doing another trek and Pam mentioned that there were seven guys down to do the Black Cat. I had heard about the Black Cat Track and thought that it would be exactly what I was looking to do. So after doing some research, including seeing that Federal Parliamentarians Jason Clare and Scott Morrison as well as a Channel Nine camera crew had recently walked the track, I signed up.12
At this stage Gary had not met any of the other members of the trekking group. Nevertheless, he embraced the idea totally and began to enthusiastically prepare.
And so the trekkers had committed themselves to the September trek. While each member of the group might claim that adventure, cultural interest and military history as reasons why they had made this commitment, there was possibly another motive common to this group that set them apart from younger people who trek the Black Cat. This motive was articulated by Glen Reiss:
I think as you go through stages of your life. You have been so busy and you feel like you have to work for various reasons and have to work really hard. Then one day you suddenly realise you’ve got to enjoy life and you can’t say, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’ There comes a time where you sort of say, ‘Oh no, I really want to do this and I’m going to make time and I’m going to do it with people that I can share it with.’ Sometimes when you go away for work or business or whatever, you spend a lot of time travelling with people that you don’t really know and are never going to see again, and these are like four guys that for the last six or eight years I’ve constantly come across and had beers with, and so it’s just a mid-life crisis perhaps. Or maybe it’s just time, a realisation when you sort of mature a bit that you’ve got to do things, otherwise you get to a stage that you can’t and you can’t say you didn’t have a chance because you make your decisions
