Australians are familiar with the story of asylum seekers who crossed from Indonesia to Christmas Island and were sent to detention camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

But there are two men in Port Moresby who used small dinghies to cross the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea three times to seek asylum.

It's a difficult journey, taking hours and hours in the sun, or through storms, to get to Australia.

Once, they even made it to Melbourne, where they started new lives — working, sightseeing and hoping they would not be caught.

Zalman and Samar Khan are friends from the tribal region of Pakistan on the Afghan border.

Samar said the pair, who are from the Pashtun tribal group, were forced to leave in 2013 to avoid being killed by Taliban militants.

"They killed my classmate and my schoolmate. But I was lucky, I run away from there," he said.

A five-year journey to find a home

The two young men flew to Papua New Guinea on business visas.

They said a visa agent told them it was part of Australia, and they could claim asylum there.

Zalman admits they knew nothing about PNG.

Samar and Zalman even made it to Melbourne, where they lived happily for seven months. ( Supplied )

"My friend told me that once upon a time in PNG they were eating humans. That make me so scared. I say I'm going from one problem to another problem," he said.

Like the majority of asylum seekers, Zalman and Samar destroyed their passports, then went to the Australian High Commission.

It referred the men's case to the United Nations Refugee Agency, which rejected their refugee claims, and a subsequent appeal.

That left the two men stuck in Port Moresby.

Sent back, time after time

So Zalman and Samar decided to fly to the small island of Daru, in the Torres Strait, and take a boat to Australian territory.

"When we got that appeal, that negative result, we were so sad and upset," Zalman said.

"So me and my friend we start looking to go somewhere else because we say there is no hope now.

"Then we decided to go to Australia from back door."

With blind luck, cash and the help of local people, Samar, Zalman and another asylum seeker from Africa made it to Saibai Island — less than four kilometres from the PNG coast, but in Australia.

The men reported to authorities on the island, thinking their asylum claim would be processed again.

But they were instead taken to Horn Island, where they were picked up by chartered jet and flown back to Port Moresby.

Undeterred, the men said they earned money by buying and selling electronics on Facebook, and saved for another crossing.

They mistakenly believed that if they could reach the Australian mainland, they would have the right to claim asylum in Australia.

Zalman said the pair and another African man returned to Daru and, after waiting for days in a house in the jungle, found another person willing to take them across the strait in a dinghy.

"So we just start the engine and we just go, go, go," he said.

"It was maybe 16 to 17 hours to reach all the way from that village to Bamaga, mainland Australia.

"It was so hot and our bodies were burned black."

Each time Samar and Zalman tried to claim asylum with Australian authorities, they were sent back to Port Moresby ( ABC news: Eric Tlozek )

That difficult journey ended near the tip of Cape York.

Sunburnt, exhausted and wandering along the beach, Zalman, Samar and their African friend met a couple from Tasmania who were visiting the Cape.

They begged water from them and asked them to call the police so they could put their claim to Australian authorities.

But, after spending a night in the Bamaga police cells, the three men were taken back to Horn Island by helicopter. Zalman realised they were being sent back to Port Moresby.

"And I told them 'I will come again, if I get a chance I will come again. I will fight for my life as long as I can'," he said.

Starting a new life in Melbourne

Zalman and Samar made good on that promise. They saved more money and crossed the strait again.

This time, they did not declare themselves to authorities and instead flew on domestic commercial flights from the Torres Strait to Cairns, and then on to Melbourne.

Samar in Federation Square after the two men successfully travelled to Australia. ( Supplied )

Zalman said one of the first things they did there was attend a protest calling on the government to free asylum seekers detained on Manus Island.

"That was our second or third day that we went in a protest for asylum seekers, for refugees, for their rights," he said.

"We were in Melbourne… standing at [the] State Library of Melbourne for the people, because we are same-same, we are humans.

"If I stand for you, I will hope tomorrow you will stand with me and for me."

The men were careful to not attract any attention from authorities when they were living in Melbourne. ( Supplied )

The men spent seven months living in Melbourne, working illegally but slowly starting to believe they had successfully started their new lives.

"Everything was so smooth, we never break any law, we paying for bus fee, we paying for train fee, we buying our own food, we didn't hurt anyone, we didn't do anything," Zalman said.

"But we were just illegal and why we were illegal? Because we didn't want to go back to our country or to PNG because it's not safe."

A crushing experience

That changed when the Australian Border Force raided the house they lived in and arrested them, sending them to detention in Darwin.

Then again, for the third time, the men were sent on a chartered flight to Port Moresby.

For Samar, it was a crushing experience.

"When I saw the PNG plane, and the flag I was shocked, I was shocked," he said.

"I don't have energy to walk because I almost finish, it was very, very hard time for us."

The men told PNG authorities they would return to Pakistan and said they have signed paperwork to go back.

But over two years later, they said they are still waiting for their home country to reissue their travel documents, and Samar said he fears what will happen when they actually return.

"This five years for me like my half life already is gone, and now I go there back and they will kill me and how I can survive there? I don't know what to do," he said.

Thousands stuck in legal gridlock around the world

There are other men like Zalman and Samar waiting in Port Moresby, either for processing or return, that are not part of Australia's "Pacific solution".

And there are thousands of people stuck in similar legal gridlock around the world.

Barrister Greg Barns, Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman on asylum seekers, said Zalman and Samar are not isolated cases.

"There are cases around Australia, there are cases right around the world, where the politics of immigration gets in the way of justice and gets in the way of practical outcomes," he said.

"Immigration law and the way in which immigration law is policed by governments, suffers more from a black letter, inhumane and impractical interpretation than any other area of law, and this case is a very good example."

Zalman and Samar have little hope of reaching Australia legally, and said the Pakistani Government has shown little interest in repatriating them, because they are an ethnic minority from its tribal areas.

So, they remain in Port Moresby, bored, frustrated and without hope.

Their ill-informed decision to seek asylum via PNG has cost them almost five years of their lives, and there is little chance of them going anywhere else.