In his 94th year, Garnet Tobin is returning to Kokoda except this time he will be flying in rather than trudging up the steep and muddy tracks through the Owen Stanley Ranges that carried so many Australians into battle against the Japanese.

Accompanied by daughter, Jenny Stockings from Gilgandra and granddaughter and Dubbo resident Kerrie Phipps, Mr Tobin will be making a pilgrimage to a place which is now part of Australia's psyche.

He was part of 2/31st Battalion which fought in the bitterest of the action on the track; the capture of Lae on September 15, 1943 and up in the Markham and Ramu valleys where malaria and sickness made up 90 per cent of the casualty rate.

Born in Bundaberg, Queensland, Mr Tobin enlisted in Martin Place, Sydney right after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, undertaking his basic infantry training at Dubbo and Cowra.

He joined the 2/31st Battalion in New Guinea as a reinforcement on December 12, 1942. This Battalion had seen service in Syria and were considered battle-experienced.

It was also part of the action Ioribaiwa Ridge where the 25th Australian Infantry Brigade halted the Japanese advance in three months of hard fighting from September to early December.

Troops from the 2/31st were also the first Australian soldiers to reoccupy Kokoda on November 2, 1942.

In the book Forever Forward: The History of the 2/31st Australian Infantry Battalion, 2nd AIF 1940-45 written by John Laffin, it mentions the arrival of reinforcements arriving at Donadabu after the capture of Kokoda.

"These soldiers, mostly the products of excellent training battalions of Dubbo and Bathurst..." Laffin, who was a sergeant in the 2/31st wrote.

Ms Phipps said the decision to attend the celebration "came out of nowhere".

She said Mr Tobin had been initially approached by Veteran's Affairs to attend the celebration but in the end an invitation was not extended. It was then the family decided to kick in and make their own way to be part of the celebration.

She said the Kokoda Track Foundation which was hosting the commemoration had been "terrific in their support".

Conditions at Kokoda will not be too far removed from those experienced 70 years ago.

Ms Phipps said some of the correspondence sent to them by the foundation to help them prepare said bathing facilities were primitive: "local rivers and wash points in public places".

"It's an area well known for malaria and the only toilets are still pit latrines," she said.

editor.liberal@ruralpress.com