To be honest I had forgotten to fill out the sign up form for the week without walls  and the only option i had was the cycling trip.As soon as i heard that  i would be joing the cycling trip i was a bit scared as to how would i do 50 to 40km on a bike. Then i saw the hidden opportunity for me in this trip , the training for SAISA was going to begin just a week after the WWW and this was a really good chance for me to start building up my stamina.

Before the trip  Miss. Jackson and Mr. polus arranged 2 practice trips the reason being to warm up before going to the trip. The first practice trip was pretty easy and it wasnt that hard . The guys at lanka forover tought us how conduct a qiuck check up of the bike to make sure that everythting was working and nothing was loose like the breaks and tires, the check up included the fornt/ back breaks, wheel alignment, suspension, gears and more. unfortunalty i  missed the second practice trip becuase i had fallen ill.  As thr days passed and we came closer and closer to the trip i got a bit nervous but aslo excitd at the same time.

 

 

DAY – 1

On the moring of the first day I woke very excited, then left for school with my brother . I was the first one to reach the school and  after some waiting other people started to come in as soon as everything was ready we left from the school . so the plan was to complete around 90% of the trip to the camp in the bus  whereas the remaing 10% was to be done on our bikes . The bus rides was good  becuase the lanka forover guy who was going to be our leader for the trip was travelling with us and gave us his phone to play good songs for a while. We took a quick snack break at P & S midway. As soon as we reached the point  from where we had to cycle all of us went to our bikes conducted the checkup mentioned earlier put on some sunscream, wore our sleeves/ gloves and then we were on our way to the camp. the journy to the camp was pretty chill.  Inorder to enter the camp we had to go through a affroad track and a very steep slope that was also really fun to do. I still remember on they way to the camp someones tire came loose to. I was really tired by the time we reached camp  and  the plan was unload the van carrying our luaggages , eat lunch, relax in our allocated rooms. Avin and Me were roomates and the got the very first room . If you ask me it was the worst room compared to all the other ones it had a bathroom door which did not close, a family of bats, water driping down when it rained, but Avin and I made the most out of it. The second strech of the cycling  journey was approx 30km but it was really hard for me becuase while cycling my thighs began to pain a lot all of a sudden  because appearrently my seat was to low putting strain on mythighs  and because of the pain i was left behind from the rest of the group but i made it, thewe just washed our bikes. At the end the the day we just relexed in our  rooms and then ligght out by 9pm.

It was time of set of  on the secnond day. It was an early start for me  as i did not sleep well. We had the breakfast by 7am then set off  on our bikes by 8am. I was still feeling tire from all the hard work we did yesterday, it was a difficult start to the day for me because this day I really had to push myself a lot considering the fact that it was going to be the longest session of our WWW (45km) .we cycled through big nature landmarks like the Kandalama reservoir and the Galkoth Kanda Mountain peak. the views was really mesmerizing. following the ride, we washed our bikes  ans then the next event on our calender was the bike Workshop where we learned about the different parts of the bike and to assemble a bike  fast forwarding to the night we had a small test on the regarding the things we had learned lets just say that it did not go as planned for me.

DAY – 3

Most would say that this day was the most eventfull stretch of the journey. it was the same hot and sunny morning . today’s route was a mix of both on-road and offroad  tracks. the first 2 and half hor of  the journey were pretty smooth sailing for me as the routee was mostly down hill mroeover the sky was cloudy. after the first  2hrs of the journey we stopped  at uncle Daya’s for the lunch, a very sweet lady there cooked us traditional sri lankan food which included  curry, fish,  steamed rice, chiken and more . the food was pretty amazing but the only problem was that they had no spoons so then i had to eat wwith my had that i had never done befor , so that was  a new experice for me and after the amazing lunxh we set off again to give a pleasent suprise  to the camp of (WWW – heart of srilanka ) for a short time, it was a fun experience meeting them and sharing our experices and all the things that we had been up to  . Fast forwarding to the evening at the camp i just relaxed and at dinner time eat some delicious  stir – fried noodles .

DAY – 4

This day started of with the ususal moring routine , however today was special bescuase on this day we wre going to climb the famous Piturangala rock. It was a relativly short ride of  the rock, after about 3km of cycling we stopped at the segiriya rock for  a break where to competed in “slowest cycling race” in which whover crossed the finish line last would be the winner, i was not good at slow cycle so i just went for it and crossed the finish line the fastest out of all the other people. where as Chiran and Connor were the slowest. from there the next stop was the rock and after a short ride there we started our climb. the first few minutes of the climb were pretty hard for me as it was a steep incline but the other half of the climb was pretty chill as we had to do bouldering. i was out of breath throughout the whole climb mroever the the sunny weather did help as well, but i was worth going through the struggle because the veiw as like that i had never seen before we could see an endless sea of lush grrem trees all around us along with the segiriya rock on the other side.  after eaching the top we were realxing until  we saw the heavy rain coming towards us as soon  as we saw it we started our decent. we cycled through the rain and stopped at a restaurant to eat our lunch and finally our our way back to the camp we all did some muddy off roading and ended up getting all muddy.

Day  – 5

This day was the most difficult  for me  bescuase most the route was up hill and half way through we ran out of water as well,  but was all worth it at the end  as i saw the vans i was so

relieved. on the way home i remembered all the fun moments of the trip moreover the bonds that i made along the way . I also reflected upon how we take our homes for granted and dont appriciate them we have have them but appriciate them when we dont. overall this trip was really a good experiece for me.

A small glimps of the special moments of the trip –