For Week Without Walls, my group had gone to the highlands plains, which is located in the central province of Srilanka, the aim of the trip was to understand more about Sri Lanka’s beauty and animal species. This was a camera oriented trip and hence allowed us to describe our experiences in the form of photos. This trip was a wonderful one not because of the views things we but the memories we created from leeches to locking Ben in the bathroom with the excuse that the door was not opening:) to hearing Mr.Lockwoods “Scary” ghost story which prevented us from going to sleep.
Day 1:We left school at 6am and it was still pretty dark. We stopped for lunch with the Anuradhapura group 30 minutes after and then left for Yapahuwa. Climbing Yapahuwa was tiring not because of the hot weather but the numerous amount of steep steps, however, it was worth it as we were greeted with a beautiful view. We took some photos and headed back down the steps and had some ice cream and lemon juice to combat the sun’s heat. After that, we left for Back of beyond where we would stay for the night. When we arrived we put our bags and left for Pidurangala rock which is right in front of Sigiriya rock however not as well know as that. The climb wasn’t challenging but when we got to the top there were so many tourists taking photos and it was as big as 3 football fields combined, the view was too spectacular to be described in words. The photos I got were really nice because of the sunset. We stayed there for an hour and a half and headed back to Back of beyond to have some dinner. Then we went on a small excursion to the nearby forest for the search of the grey slender loris however we were unlucky to find one and went back and slept.
Day 2:We got up early, had breakfast and had the opportunity to practice our photography skills on lizards, birds, and a puppy. We had to leave early in order to reach Sir Johns Bungalow on time. The bus ride was fun as we talked about random stuff and visited a stream where Jack thought it would be a good idea to jump on to a “dry” grassland and headed up submerging his whole leg in thick mud. Before we arrived at Sir Johns we stopped at Pitawala Pathana in search of the nannophrys marmorata which is an endemic frog species. Luckily we found it after 5 mins of searching and got some great photos. We then walked uphill to get a nice view of the mountains. This area was sketchy in terms of safety as it was a straight drop some hundred meters. We went back to our bus and headed to Sir Johns. On arrival, we were greeted with hot towels which was a must when it 15 degrees outside and had a late lunch. We rested for a while and wrote in our process journals about our experiences. During the evening at 7:30, we left for a night walk down the road.I hated it not because it was cold but the fact that there were leeches and it was dark so one couldn’t see if he had any, Luckily I was wearing leech socks so I was pretty calm during the walk.I got many photos but the amount of light hindered the quality of the photos. After finding an ample amount of lizards we headed back cold and wet, had dinner and went to sleep
Day 3:This day we had planned to go on a really long hike but it was changed because of weather conditions so we chilled in the bungalow playing games and talking. We got ready and went 15mins down the road where we got off and started our hike When we were one-third of the way up it started to rain quickly. In addition to that, we lost both of our teachers waiting aimlessly at a spot soaked and covered with leeches.I thought because I had leech socks I was safe but I discovered many where I wouldn’t even expect them to be. We canceled our hike and headed back and I was soo happy that it was not because I didn’t like leeches but that fact I was soaked and cold. We stayed inside and went for a night walk. We eventually found a small green snake and took many photos of it.I’m pretty sure the snake felt like a celebrity at that moment.
Day 4:This was our last day at Sir Johns, We got ready and headed to Nuwara Eliya to have lunch at St.Andrews.We were able to witness the beautiful views of the tea plantations through the journey. On our arrival, we had lunch different from what we had been eating through the trip and was a needed change to refresh our bodies. Shortly, we left for Victoria Park, where various migratory birds from around the world are seen, It was a pleasant experience to see these migratory birds and to photograph them. In the evening we went for a short night walk around the hotel and found many frog species and lizards. I enjoyed this experience particularly because there weren’t any leeches in the area we were staying in.
Day 5:This marked the end of our trip. We woke up early and headed back to Colombo.
Learning Outcomes:
Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth: I was able to identify my own strengths which were photography,hiking through tough areas and also found out areas where I lacked such as my geographical knowledge and about knowledge of flora and fauna.
Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively: This trip had a lot of team collaboration from helping each other through tough parts of a hike to helping take photographs and giving tips and advice for those who weren’t as experienced in photography and hence I feel that I had demonstrated the skills to work collaboratively
Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process:I developed skills such as my knowledge of good composition, lighting techniques, and new styles of photography.