Duke of Edinburgh trip to the Knuckles Mountain Range Kandy ( Novembers 21st- 23rd)

The DOE practice journey Kandy was a long and eventful journey with many long walks and worst of all. ALOT OF LEACHES and being there during the monsoon season didnt help at all becuase they were litarally everywhere. Each step I took another leach would latch on. So we had to keep moving always moving. NEVER STOP MOVING.

To begin this journey however was another thing. We had to wake up at 4 in the morning to come to school around 4: 30 am. It was the most sluggish and annoying morning of my life.  The worst part was that I packed as I was about to leave because I forgot to pack the night before so I was in a very BIG RUSH.  So upon arrivel to school on Thursday, we were all dead and tired so no one was in the mood to talk to socialize at all we all just wanted to sleep. We left from OSC about 5 40 ish because we had some delays with some people coming which was pretty irritating for us becuase we woke up so early no reason at all.

The Drive there was long and tendious. Jack, Rizqi and I for majority of the trip up there was either sleeping or meditating with the help of his meditating app. But through the trip we had one stop in a rest stop where we had a nice breakfast meal and ALOT OF COFFEE becuase we were still dead and were not ready to walk for hours upon hours. Once we got off the smooth roads it was like a rollercoast. I think my watch tracked around 1500 steps because of how BUMPY the roads were. The worst part was that we like 1km off from camp and there were like 5 huge logging trucks which were coming down the hill. WHICH TOOK forever for us get past as we were small winedy roads.

After making it to camp we got our tents assigned and luckily since all the tents were taken, Rizqi lenny and I got assigned to a nice mud house with proper beds and lights, So we got very lucky. After setting and getting ready we got put into our groups and tried to pin point where we were in in Sri lanka with the Maps. After many discussion and fighting over where we were and alot of calling Major Ruwan to help us deduce where we were we finally came to a compromise. Then we started to set group roles which were (Step counter, Leader, Map holder, Observer, First Aid). These roles changed every day so that each person had a good understanding of what each role was and how to be each role. The first hike along the path of the the Knuckles roads. We walked past the village near by and the main goal of that trip was to get to the road that was near a village that is called the most secluded village in Sri lanka unfortuantely on that day there was DENSE fog and what Mr. Lockwood wanted us to see this amazing view but unfrotuantly becuase of the rainfall at night there was alot of fog following the day after so unfortunately we didnt get to see this amazing view. On the walk back if our luck wasnt bad enough we had very heavy rainfall in on the walk back and even though I had a rain coat i was still SOACKED as my rain coat turned out to be not a rain coat and just looked and felt like one.  As always we were infested by leeches and becuase of this issue, Karven, Sheruni and I developed this leech spray that was so deadly once it was sprayed onto a leech it would shrival up and die ( Morbid  but effective to say the least). As we were walking back from the last day we took a detour and went around the forest across more land which was significantly higher and much more painful and infested with cow poo and just our luck, the sun had set and I forgot to bring a torch so I was basically a blind man in a mind field trying to avoid anything that was pitch black. As we returned back a sigh of relief as we were back, we could take freezing shower. We got back we changed into warm comfortable clothes and to top the night off we had a delicious BBQ chicken and sausages to finish of the night with some card games ( Which i lost every game ) and sleep of course.

The Next day

The next day we did a walk around the knuckles park observing the nature and talking photos or videos for our focus project. We even got to see how the workers there created tar and how they created roads there. It was a very intresting process as big vechicals cannot get up there was the roads were made with a mixture of burnt old tires which are being cooked with barrells under a large fire. Afterwards they are layed over a sediment mixture of rocks and sand. Most suprising thing i saw that day was that these men would walk bare foot without any protections to the heat of the tar. Mind blowning in too many ways. So as we walked around the road I noticed crosses on the floor scattered across the area and then i realized that we were walking around peoples graves which at that moment was very grim and hit me personally hard and alot of respects towards people who live up in nuckles

Final day

The Final Day was the toughest and most rewarding day of the trip as we took hiked to one of the views where once we got up there it was a sight to see to say the least. It made climbing up the very steep incline worth it and I even made a bet with one of the instructers that if it got steeper he would carry to the end and of course I won the bet but I did hear an very intresting story about how once he had to carry a women down Adams peak after he had shattered both of her ankles from a fall and what lenghts those guides do to bring back their people in one peice and safely.  After wards once we reached our first check point it was a down hill to this Waterfall that we were at this point dying for as we were sweaty, hot and wanted to cool of badly but the hill down was foggy as ever to the point where we could see 2 feet in front of us. But it was very intresting to and fancisnating to see because guides told us that generally you would see a beautiful view but since of the dense fog we could’nt even see 3 feet in front of us so it was a of bit of anxeity and bravery to walk knowing that we could potentionally walk of a clip but thankful no did and we got to the infamous view that we were waiting to see and it was a sight to see. We could see our entire route that we walked and our base camp and almost the entire knuckles range. From their onwards it was a downhill to the waterfall and it was at points a straight fall down was exhilarating and very scary at the same time as I didnt want to break a leg or 2. Once we got the Waterfall it was a race to get in but as soon as we jumped it, it felt like someone had slapped me in th

e face. The water was freezing and for generally after your in cold

water for like 3 or 4 minutes your body adapts and your get used to the water, not this water I was always freezing and it hurt, we even tried to go under the water fall but the water was going so fast it felt like small rocks hitting you. So after are very freezing bath we dried up and had to wake all the way back to camp with took us another 2-3 hours. Where we packed up and drove home.

Speacial Thanks to Major Ruwan and His crew which made it possible.

Learning outcomes

• Strength & growth.
• Challenge & skills.
• Initiative & planning.
• Working collaboratively with others.