Special connection to region

The Kyabram P-12 Year 11 student has just spent nine days covering the 96km of the trail – and nearly all of that was either going up incredibly steep mountains, or down the other side.

Where she says one of the first things she discovered was “just how clumsy I was”.

“It didn’t take me very long to become very good friends with the ground,” Matilda said.

“And I knew it was going to be hard, but I don’t think I ever fully understood just how much I might come to not liking walking so much – except for the moment I slipped and fell into a bit of a swamp.’’

Matilda was an inaugural recipient of a Colin Sinclair Scholarship — a program established by The Nationals leader, and Member for Murray Plains, Peter Walsh, to send young people from his electorate to walk the Kokoda Trail.

In 2023 Mr Walsh made the same walk and found it such a profound experience he returned home and established the Colin Sinclair Scholarship to provide young people from his electorate with the same opportunity.

He said the support of the Kyabram Club funded the scholarship Matilda received.

“That funding, organised by Kyabram Club manager Greg Ryan on behalf of the club and its members in particular, and the wider community in general, has enabled Matilda to get a first-hand understanding of this heroic but incredibly tragic part of Australian history,” Mr Walsh said.

“She was able to join four other Year 11 students from the region on this year’s trek, all of them with scholarships named in honour of Rochester’s Colin Sinclair, who fought and died on the Kokoda, and whose family still lives in that town today.

“While in PNG Matilda, like the other students, has been matched with a fallen soldier from this region.”

“In her case it was Corporal Stan Snow, a 28-year-old from Shropshire, England, who had emigrated to Australia and lived between Kyabram and Rochester.

‘’He had just taken a job as a barman at the Victoria Hotel in Rochester when he enlisted.

“She was able to visit his gravesite on behalf of his family and community — this is an important part of the trip as it made for a uniquely personal journey for her and the other students.”

Mr Walsh said it was his “privilege and honour” to visit Colin Sinclair’s grave himself and later deliver pictures of it to his family.

He said it was important the teenagers understood why they were going there at all.

“This trip was about honouring the memories of the many, too many, young Australians who went there, died there and are still there, that is why we are running these scholarships,” Mr Walsh said.

“It is our hope these young people have come home and will share their time in PNG, what they have learnt from it and encourage others to try it as well.”

Matilda’s family has its own military history, which is what encouraged her to apply for the scholarship supported by the Kyabram Club.

“My great-grandpa Small was a World War II Anzac and he covered a lot of Papua-New Guinea before being deployed in Singapore,” Matilda said.

“He was still there when it fell to the Japanese, and he was a prisoner of war for 42 months in the notorious Sandakan prisoner of war camp in Sumatra.

“His time there was so traumatic my family says he would rarely speak of his experience; he was left with many demons that followed him for life.

“I have always admired him so much and wish I could have met him, but he passed before my birth – I hope this trip has helped me better understand his story.”

Matilda also has another memory she won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

On day eight of her trek they had almost reached Kokoda itself, but they had to be diverted because there was no water at the Kokoda camp site, so they spent their last night on the trail at a nearby village.

“But the next day we did reach Kokoda – and then had the scariest flight of my life to get back to Port Moresby.”