Created By: Sasindu (DP1), James (Dp1), James (MYP5), John (MYP 5), Lucca (DP1)

This poster demonstrates CAS outcomes achieved on the WWW Highlands Trip as well as showing some memorable pictures to encapsulate the experience.

Day 3:

Needless to say we had an excellent sleep that night, the freezing wind and cool temperatures saw to that. This day was all about Horton Plains.

At around 8:00 that morning we headed off to the famous park with the goal of climbing the 2nd highest peak in Sri Lanka, which we accomplished just for lunch. Our journey was pretty nice, hiking through the plains before reaching a cloud forest. Hiking in the cloud forest was a bit difficult, absolutely enraging a couple people with its steep overgrown paths and low hanging bushes however we saw a a lot of cool biodiversity unique to the high altitude.

Some of the cool species that we saw:

We also saw a little froggo all the way at the top of the peak but unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture of it.

Of course the biodiversity wasn’t the only thing we came for, the view were absolutely amazing. Fortunately I managed to get some nice, grainy pictures of it.

Day 4: we made the journey to Nuwara-Eliya today, more importantly to Jagro for some tasty fresh strawberries and cheesecake. After our shortish break we made our way to St Andrews for the final night and frog watching. There we had a nice lunch followed by a trip to the Victoria Park to see some of the endemic birds its known for, as well as (more importantly) the children’s playground with spinny toy things. From there, we went cargills to wait in line for some Kome crackers.

During the frog walk we also saw a big Huntsman, a Toad, two other kinds of frogs (whose names have left my mind) and a Rhino Horned lizard.

By the end of the walk we were absolutely freezing our butts off as it was 16 degrees. Needless to say we sprinted back to the hotel and plunged into the shower, only to discover that there was no hot water, only absolutely freezing cold glacier water which wasn’t nice or expected at all. Following the freezing shower, I ran down to the hot fire in the lobby to warm up. Dinner was pretty nice but what was better was the sleep, next to the heater, in a nice bed. That really capped off the trip. From there, we just hurried back to Colombo the next morning and got there before 5.

The last couple days were really outstanding, visiting the renowned Horton Plains, staying at St Andrews, visiting Victoria Park, the whole mix was just a really phenomenal end to the WWW experience. However it didn’t come without its challenges, the biggest of which was perseverance, either through the grueling Horton Plains trek, the icy temperatures the last night, and long, arduous car rides just to meet that end goal, a world class view, critically endangered frogs, unique ecosystems and biodiversity, it was all worth it-perhaps the greatest lesson we learned during the trip, how valuable nature is and the virtue of patience. Something that translates nicely into the DP.

The trip was filled with themes like comradery (watching people fall and not laughing too hard), obviously perseverance, learning new skills, open-mindedness etc. The trip also gave us unique insight to the highly localized ecosystems and biodiversity, learning about things like cloud forests and human impact on amphibians which are invaluable to an ESS student such as myself. But yeah, overall a great trip and learning experience. Recommend 10/10 even if your not the biggest fan of hiking because the view is more than worth it.

 

 

 

Day 1: 

The trip began with the slamming of a van door and a decent sleep through traffic until our 1/4ish of our trip, marked by a stop at a road-side restaurant for some brunch. Up till that point it was all just highways and the usual highway scenery. It continued like that for a fair bit until we got to the hills. For some of us that marked the point where the nice straight road turned into a beautiful scenic route, straight out of national geographic. For others of us it marked our descent into anarchy, and motionsickness. Luckily I managed to sleep through most of it. By 12:30 we had reached the point of liftoff to the rest of our trip. This was where we had lunch and then went into our first hike through the patty fields.

 

 

After about 3 hours and only one leech attack (to me, others were not so fortunate) we arrived at Kinchingune, our camp for the night. After showering up, eating some dinner and a can of chile-lime pringles, it was time for sleep. Lucky for us, our beds had some nice rods through them which ensured peaceful, non troubling sleep.

 

 

Day 2:

We woke up with cramped backs and rumbling stomachs. Brekfast was some delicious porrige and bread (for me so I wouldn’t puke it up on the chaotic 40 minute drive to the hike site). The objective of this hike was to see two of the highest waterfalls in Sri Lanka, and hopefully swim in the second one. The first waterfall was pretty underwhelming as waterfalls go but the cool water vapor being shot out was more than worth it. Unfortunately we observed our first global issue of the trip here; pollution.

There was plastic bags, bottles cans etc. all spilling into the waterfall basin causing a really disturbing image. Luckily, the rest of the hike had no such pollution. At first we went through an evergreen pine forest littered with pinecones, pine needles and slippery rocks. We hiked along that trail for about 20 minutes before we saw a clearing up ahead, looking out on a magnificent view.

 

 

The rest of the hike was through a large grassy plain on a steep hill until we got to the forested creek area which led up to the waterfall. We parcoured across the stream to a large rock where we had some snacks, namely Hawaian Cookies. After the quick break we changed and jumped into the water. The water was so incredibly cold that it warmed you up, it hurt like getting punched in the gut. Once we got used to it it was pretty nice though. The water basin was about 10 feet deep and smooth edged. Some vines hung down into the water on the left side. We paused for a group picture, changed and then headed back to the vans.

 

From the hiking launch point the car trip to our hotel was about an hour.

 

 

 

 

After eating lunch we drove to lipton seat. There we climbed the hill, saw old lipton and his humongous hands and then had some really delicious samosas, roti and this dahl peanut ball and treacle thingie. Back at the hotel we were assigned to rooms showered up, played on the playground for a bit as other people showered. Then we ate dinner, wrote refliections and headed off to sleep.

 

Learning objectives of the first 2 days:

The most obvious outcome achieved was perseverance, as we had to endure (persevere if you will) through long car rides on less than nice roads, which is a struggle for me. This taught us patience as we would always be driving to see something new and mostly worth the drive. We also persevered through, leech infested patty fields, long and tiresome hikes and beds that we weren’t comfortable in. Ultimately, these first couple days really were about teaching us the value of nature, going out of our city lives to see the countryside.

We also had to be openminded and optimistic, elsewise the horrible car journeys would have been unbearable, pessimism leading us to lose sight of what the trip was about (exploring the country). We also had to have open palates as the food we ate was new. This wasn’t so much a struggle as it was delicious but still trying a new food can be a challenge for some people.