Our first full day in Kumul Lodge and we’d arranged with our guide, Max, that we would be able to climb Mt Hagen. It sounded like a fantastic day walk – 8 to 10 hours walking through forest and mountain, with spectacular views from the peak. We were pretty excited about this, though for some reason we couldn’t quite fathom, Max seemed less thrilled. We thought maybe he just preferred to walk along the road (we’d done this the previous afternoon and he’d been able to gather soda cans – for later resale – to his heart’s content).

Our little group of three set off, each equipped in their own various styles for the excursion: James & Lucy: technical hiking gear – boots, fancy lightweight trousers, wicking tops plus waterproof jackets; Max: a smart pair of slacks, woolen pullover, white gumboots, a machete and an umbrella. Max kindly offered to loan us a pair of gumboots – we smiled, inwardly chuckled and politely refused.

How wrong we were.

You see, here’s the thing about rainforests: it rains. A lot. No, I mean really a lot. You’re thinking Surrey on a drizzly afternoon in February. I’m thinking an atmosphere best approximated by turning the central heating on full then getting someone to follow you round tipping a bucket of water over you every 10 minutes or so. The type of rain that laughs at waterproofs and treats goretex walking boots as a challenge to its masculinity. The type of rain where you actually really NEED gumboots.

Max 1, James & Lucy 0.

The thing with all that rain is that it turns the smooth earth of the trail into a vast churning mud plain. Walking in this terrain loses all semblance to the normal day to day activity, particularly when you’re headed up a steep slope. As your front foot lands, there’s a short period of stability before it slides slowly, gloopily backwards. Your back foot slides in sympathy. Yep, basically you end up pretty much dancing the Running Man all the way up the mountain. In hiking boots. Minus the arm movements, of course – I’m not crazy you know and a simile can be stretched too far. The only thing that can really stand up to all this mud and keep you upright is….gumboots.

Max 2, James & Lucy 0.

Of course, this situation didn’t go on for long. An hour into the walk, the trail ran out (well, it was still theoretically there, but untouched for 3 years. The rainforest grows a LOT in 3 years) and the bushwhacking started, courtesy of Max’s machete. We marched gamely onwards, stumbling over tree roots and spiny bamboo and hurdling a 2 foot high fallen tree trunk every 10 steps or so. Of course by this time, the grips in our technical walking books were filled with mud, so we were slipping and sliding all over the place. No grip, no trail, virtually no solid footing. You know what works well on this terrain? Gumboots.

Max 3, James & Lucy 0.

We know when we’re beaten. After about 2.5 hours, we turned back – we were already pretty tired by this point and after 10 hours wed have been in tired-enough-to-be-stupid-and-end-up-injuring-yourself territory. After another 2.5 hours walking in the blinding torrential rain (during the course of which, Max confessed his hatred for this particular walk – apparently you can’t see sh** from the top anyway), we ended up back at our cozy bungalow, where we stayed for the remainder of the afternoon, listening to the blinding torrential rain.

Best decision EVER.

[Me on our trek. Note the lack of any discernible trail….]