If those who tackle the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea sometime soon wonder why the Sharks brand is prominent amongst the tour guides and track locals, there is a good reason.
Steve Holz, a long time Sharks pathways coach, having been a head coach of the club’s Matthews Cup team, an assistant at SG Ball level as recently as 2022 and a member of the coaching staff of the premiership winning Jersey Flegg squad in 2018, is the school principal at Marrickville High.
Recently Holz joined 11 others, with four high school principals amongst them, in tackling the Kokoda Track, and before departing he contacted the Sharks about the possibility of taking excess training gear, to gift to the locals along the way, with the club only too happy to oblige.
"Thanks to Bryce Gentle and the Cronulla Sharks we took a range of Sharks apparel with us, and the pictures show some of the newly converted Sharks fans we met along the way," Holz said.
However, the trek was about much more than outfitting the locals in Sharks kit, with Holz and his delegation tackling the challenge of the Kokoda track and experiencing a region of PNG which has significant cultural relevance to Australians.
"The trek was a combination of challenge and beauty and whilst these words do not do it justice, they do capture the extremes of the experience," Holz began.
"There were no bullets being fired, nor dysentery to endure, nor loss of friends and comrades, that my grandfather experienced.
"But there was insight into the conditions endured by those who fought on the track 83 years ago, because the track has not changed. It remains the only way to travel the almost 140km between Kokoda and Port Moresby and to the villages in between.
"To do what those soldiers did, in those conditions, suffering as they did due a lack of supplies (food, medical, and munitions) is truly remarkable," Holz added.
For Holz and Sylvania High principal Renee Holz the trip to Kokoda was also a fundraising initiative, the pair teaming up to raise money for both the RPA hospital school and Sutherland hospital school, with over $5000 having been collected to this point.
Holz also expressed his thanks to Peter Morrison and the team at Adventure Kokoda for an amazing trek.
