The length and route of the track has altered since 1942 and will continue to change in the future...

September 1942. Kokoda track. An Australian soldier looking out across the deep valleys towards Ioribaiwa on the Kokoda track, from a point where the road ends and the descent by foot track commences. This location is the starting point for Kokoda trekkers travelling north. [AWM 026710]

The southern end of the Kokoda track begins at Owers' Corner, 61 kilometres by road north-east of Port Moresby. The track is 96 kilometres long and ends on the northern side of the Owen Stanley Range at Kokoda station near Kokoda village.

The location of the track has changed since 1942. Just as the Koiari people in the mountains move their villages to a different place every now and again, so they also alter the route the track follows. Then years later it may move again, possibly back to an earlier route. At present, about three quarters of the track follows the same path as that used by the Australians and Japanese in 1942.

The track is also shorter than it was in 1942. At the Port Moresby end it once began at McDonald's Corner. In mid-1942 two Australian units, 7th Field Company and 2/14th Field Company, constructed a road from McDonald's Corner to Owers' Corner shaving seven kilometres off the length of the track.