DP Orientation- Borderlands

Day 1

On the 28th of August until the 30th of August we went on a 3 day trip to Kithulgala Borderlands, to start the DP orientation. We started off by meeting our travel guides who lead us near a dam was still being built. We stayed there and ate some butter cake. We then had debrief with the guides. After the debrief the guides gave us the life jackets and helmets. We then moved to an area where it was near marvel canyon. Where we jumped off tall rocks and slid down the rocks. Sadly we weren’t able to do the 20m jump like we did in Grade 9. We then moved through the forrest and when back to the dam. We went under the dam to have lunch. After lunch we moved through the forrest, and went to do the rafting activity. The guides told us what we should do during the white water rafting, telling us all the safety protocols. We then did an activity where we floated around incase if a raft flips. We then got in on the rafts and when white water rafting. During that session I have witnessed many of my colleagues fall down in to the water, which made it one of my highlighted moments in borderlands. While we were rafting we were ordered to leave the raft with tour guides that were with us and told us to jump into the water, but once I jumped in I heard the screams of classmates as they jumped in saying that the water was cold. We then floated the down the river until we were ordered to get back to our rafts as we were close to our destination. Once we reached to place, we had another debrief about the rules and regulation when staying in this camp. Once we were told about the rooms we were staying, we got our bags and made ourselves feel like home. We then had a few hours to ourselves, which we took the time on changing from our wet clothes, and taking shower. After that we had meeting where we talked about how well it went and what could have been better. After that we had dinner, which ended day 1.

Day 2

On the second day we started of our day by having another meeting, we were told that we were going to be exploring the caves, and possibly go abseiling down. After we ate our breakfast we all went to our buses where it took us to tea plantations. Once the buses dropped us there we had another debrief on what might happen. After that we started our hike up the hills to go to the caves, we had to hike a great distance, and to make thing worse it rained last night, due to that when we were climbing the stones some of my classmates slipped and fell but didn’t get too hurt. There were many moments where I could slipped and fell off the hill. Fortunately we were able to make it to the caves. The guides then talked about how monks used to live here. We then split into to groups, one groups stays in the current cave and the other goes to the other cave that nearby. I was in the group that had to go to the other cave first. Once we got to the other cave there was a disgusting smell which I believed to be the waste from the bats that lived here. We had Theory of Knowledge session with Mrs. O’ Sullivan, she told us a story about how a person strapped down with some other people in a cave, those people including the main character had never seen the outside world since they were chained to the cave only being able to face the back of the cave, one day one of the those people woke with their chains being cut, due to that the person started walking towards the outside, he learns about everything of the outside world and rushes to tell his friends, sadly his friends didn’t believe and were annoyed by this because they believed what was told by the people that chained them. We were told this story by staring at the back of the cave. After that session our groups switched and we went back to the previous cave while the others when to the cave we just came out of. We had Geography session with Mr. Lockwood, where drew maps about our journey from the camp to the cave. After that we hiked down the hill and were hiking to the cliff where we were going to abseil. Unfortunately while we were going we had to deal with many leeches that were coming to suck our blood, I got bitten by many leeches so many time that my legs were all covered with blood that was still being clotted. After a two our of walking we made it to the abseiling location, but a few minute later it started to rain heavily down, due to the rain we had to stay near the abseil side bearing cold, heavy rain. We then had lunch nearby the stream.

The author eating his lunch

After I I decided to abseil down, for the first minute of abseiling down I was doing fine, but then shoes decided to not have any grip and I slipped, when I slipped it was 10 seconds of sheer terror as I tried to get myself back up. But it turned my shoes weren’t that great for abseiling so I slipped again this time not being that scared. I slipped a 6 times when I was doing the abseiling, and got some minor injuries. After that we went back to same leech infested trail we came from, and went back to the buses and went back to camp. During the camp we did the same stuff last time. Except we looked at a video of climate activist Greta Thunberg’s speech. After that we learned that since the dam is being made, there was a high chance that there won’t be any more rafting activities.

Day 3

In the last we were split into groups to interview some people that were from the Kithulgala community. My group was to interview someone that was working on the dam that was being made. We made questions first talking about when the dam will be completed and what the structure of the dam is. We also made question on how people will be affected by this dam, we wrote about how this dam will affect his family. We then got onto the buses that took us to places where the interviewees are. Since our interviewee was working at the dams we went to that place. We waited for a while, but then finally our interviewee came. We first introduced ourselves to him and he introduced himself. We then asked him the questions. He told us that the dam was nearly completed and told us when it will be complete. He also talked about how there may be affect on the rafting activities, since the dam will lower the water level, making some parts hard to raft. He then told us that since he is making money by working here his family was able to have a positive impact. After we thanked his for the interview we went to a bridge where you can see the river. I was absolutely astounded by the natural beauty of the scene. After that we went back to camp where we packed our stuff since it was the final day. After we ate out lunch we had to say goodbye to the guides that we bonded with. After that we took photos of our homerooms like the one that you’ve most probably seen when clicking the post. After that we got into our buses and look behind as we were sad to see the place we had most fun disappear as the bus moved.