(Cover Image Credit: Mr Lockwood)

As a warm up on this morning we went for a 1km run around the area to prepare ourselves for the day.

Because of our amazing performance in the canyoning on the previous day, Wade trusted us to do some advanced canyoning with bigger jumps, more obstacles and different terrain.

Wade taught us some interesting facts about how locals would come down to the river and mine for precious stones such as rubies and sapphires after storm after I asked him why there were deposits of small rocks everywhere.

This canyoning experience was very different as we had more smaller slides into the water and did more swimming down the stream. It was somewhat more peaceful as we sat on the rocks that had been carved by the water and smoothened out by time. Sitting there you could admire the sedimentary layers and picture how the river could have looked like years ago.

To end our canyoning with a bang we jumped down a 10m jump into the waters below at the end of the waterfall. But for those with a bit more class (Me, Shinara, Chirath and Dr Leigh) we used a zip line and named our group Team Zip. We watched as everyone before us took a leap of faith, flying for a bit before crashing with the surface of the water. We all decided to say something as we were going down and I decided to sing the iconic line of “you go down just like holy Mary” by the band Ghost. It was so much fun to come whooshing down towards everyone. I was dubbed by my friends of having the best landing which I will now carry around me with pride.

After coming back from canyoning, we had lunch before starting what would end up being my biggest achievement of the trip. The famed ladder climb. In the middle of camp stood a massive ladder with big steps you would have to climb up with your partner. As you went further up the distance between the steps increased till they were bigger than you. I partnered up with Sho-Ji and we created a tactic. I would climb up the steps first with him kneeling so that I could boost myself up. I would then hoist him up before repeating the process. We were given 10 minutes to climb up the ladder and we had already found ourselves on the second step in under a minute. We worked well and communicated what each of us should do. When we got to the top we found out that we were the fastest partner to get to the top with 4 minutes and 13 seconds. When me and Sho-Ji came down the ladder we had smiles slapped on our faces. It was truly an achievement as we were faster than the most athletic people in our grade and beat their time (Sorry Yoosuf and Ethan 😀 ). It really showed to me how much you can achieve with teamwork.

For todays reflection task we made shadow puppets out of paper which we would be using on day 3 for our TOK class. We were going to recreate Plato’s cave and see if we could identify the shapes which we saw today. I created a butterfly and the tear in its wings looked like a smiley face adding an extra degree of wholesomeness.

Here is my audio reflection (featuring me getting distracted by the moon🌑) : 220925_004