A message from the mountains of Papua New Guinea marks the culmination of a seventeen-year commitment, and a community fundraising effort that has helped change lives.
“This is being sent to you from the remote village of Dorobisoro. Your support has made it happen! The run-down remote health care centre now has power, lights and communication! The bonus is we also brought in new health workers and vaccines for the children, last vaccine programme was more than two years ago. The people here send their sincere thanks and gratitude.”
That message, sent in early May by Mapleton’s Peter Gamgee from one of the most isolated communities in Papua New Guinea, marks the end of a journey that began seventeen years ago, and the beginning of something far more significant for the villages along the trail he has spent much of his adult life trying to help.
The Ghost Mountain Trail
In the mountains of Papua New Guinea’s Central Province, in the rugged Rigo District on the foothills of the Owen Stanley Range, lies the Ghost Mountain Trail, also known by its traditional name, the Kapa Kapa Track. It is one of the lesser-known stories of the Second World War.
In October 1942, more than 900 American soldiers from the 32nd “Red Arrow” Division marched its length in a bid to outflank Japanese forces during the New Guinea campaign. The terrain was punishing steep jungle ridges that soldiers could only ascend on hands and knees or by cutting steps with axes and machetes. Malaria, dengue fever, dysentery and infected sores took a heavy toll. By the time the survivors reached the other end, only a quarter were fit to fight.
Unlike the nearby Kokoda Track, which draws thousands of trekkers annually, the Ghost Mountain Trail has remained largely unknown outside specialist military history circles. The villages along it have fared similarly: remote, underserved, and largely overlooked.
Seventeen Years in the Making
Peter Gamgee, a Queensland-based writer and adventurer who now lives in Mapleton, first walked the Ghost Mountain Trail in 2009. He returned in 2011 with his son, spending more time in the villages and gaining a clearer picture of the services they lacked.
“One thing we were absolutely taken by was the communities and the strength of the communities,” he said. “It was clear that people here were missing out, missing out a lot on essential services because they are so remote.”
In 2018, Peter guided American author James Campbell and his daughter over the Kapa Kapa Trail. Campbell, who had first walked the trail in 2006, had written Ghost Mountain Boys, a book documenting the ordeal of the 126th Regiment on that same route and his work had already brought a degree of international attention to the area. The 2018 expedition deepened that connection and helped formalise plans to assist the trail communities.
“It’s been a long journey since 2018 when we made that commitment,” Peter said. “And now it’s only through the help of quite a lot of people, through joining with PNG Tribal Foundation in PNG, to really give it the clout that it needed.”
Peter is also the author of In Search of the Flying Dutchman, an account of his search for a lost Second World War aircraft, a C-47A cargo plane that crashed in the mountains of the Papuan Peninsula in November 1942. That search, conducted across multiple expeditions over many years, has helped draw further attention to the region and its communities
The Clinic at Dorobisoro
The Dorobisoro health clinic is a weathered timber-and-iron building, raised on stilts, in a clearing in the mountains. Since 2009 it had operated without electricity, without lighting, and without any means of communicating with the outside world. Medical infrastructure had deteriorated badly. Health workers treated patients by torchlight. Emergencies could not be escalated to provincial authorities.
For an estimated 500 children living across the district, the consequences were tangible and serious.
“Right now we’re standing here in front of a somewhat rundown clinic that was without power, without lights, without any form of communication,” Peter said on arrival. “All the infrastructure had fallen apart many years ago.”
Through all of this, community health worker Kauke Sibide had continued to serve the village and surrounding communities, providing whatever care was possible under extremely difficult conditions and without the basic tools that most health workers take for granted.
What Changed on 7 May 2026
On 7 May, the lights came on at Dorobisoro for the first time.
A solar array installed on the clinic roof — the work of electrician Adam Manders from Getaway Trekking and PNG Solar Supply Pty Ltd, now provides reliable power for lighting and daily clinic operations. A Starlink satellite internet terminal, enabled by Papua New Guinea’s recent licensing of the Starlink service, connects the clinic to provincial health authorities and to the wider world.
Health workers can now communicate directly with the Provincial Health Authority, and new health workers have arrived in the village. A vaccination programme, the first in more than two years, was recently delivered to children across the district, with vaccines initially transported in by charter aircraft on dry ice.
The logistical capabilities of the clinic took a major step forward on the morning of the 10th May. Working through the Provincial Health Authority, the team managed to transport a dedicated vaccines fridge to Dorobisoro on the charter flight. The unit has been installed in the clinic, meaning vaccines can now be stored on-site for ongoing use.
“Today we turn on the power and the lights and we have communication to the outside world,” Peter said at the clinic. “People here have a much greater chance of surviving and having their health issues dealt with properly.””
The Starlink connection extends beyond the clinic itself. People from neighbouring villages along the Ghost Mountain Trail will be able to access the service, internet connectivity where none has ever existed before.
On the clinic wall, a plaque now records who made it happen: “Power, Light and Communications are provided to the Dorobisore clinic by PNG Tribal Foundation with the help of PNG Solar Supply Pty Ltd and through donations made by the community of Mapleton Queensland Australia.”
The Mapleton Connection
The funds that paid for the solar system and Starlink equipment were raised here, on the Blackall Range, at a community fundraiser held at the Mapleton Men’s Shed in September 2025.
The Spirit of Papua New Guinea evening was organised by Peter and supported by the Blackall Range Lions Club and the Men’s Shed. Former PNG patrol officers Col Young and John Brady opened proceedings with accounts of their time in the country before independence. Peter then spoke about the Ghost Mountain Trail communities and the realities of life without basic health services, among them, the case of a local woman with a debilitating, life-threatening ulcerated leg that had gone untreated through lack of access to care.
The community responded with nearly $16,000, enough to fund the equipment that was subsequently flown into Dorobisoro by charter aircraft and installed during the first week of May 2026. Funds were channelled through PNG Tribal Foundation, which coordinated the project on the ground.
“Our community in my home town raised the money to do this,” Peter said.
The organisations credited on the clinic’s plaque, and in Peter’s own acknowledgements, are well known locally: the Blackall Range Lions Club, the Mapleton Men’s Shed, and the Mapleton and District Community Association (MADCA). Individual community members who attended the fundraiser or supported the project in other ways also contributed, as did sales of Peter’s books on the night and subsequently.
What Comes Next
The villages of Tabu, Sari, Lora, Igonomu, Abavana, Mimai and Laronu are among those already being served by the Dorobisoro clinic and its upgraded facilities. But the need extends much further. Many more communities along the Ghost Mountain Trail remain without basic services, particularly on the northern side of the Owen Stanley Range, where some of the most isolated villages have yet to be reached at all.
The project has been covered by national media in Papua New Guinea as a practical example of community-funded international aid working directly and effectively on the ground.
Peter described the day the clinic was powered up as “the best birthday present I have ever received.” A good number of the people who made it possible live right here on the Blackall Range.
Peter Gamgee’s book In Search of the Flying Dutchman is available through Booktopia and other Australian booksellers. Proceeds support ongoing work along the Ghost Mountain Trail. For more information about the Ghost Mountain Expedition and future fundraising events, contact Peter at peter.gamgee@bigpond.com
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