DP Orientation Borderlands Trip

In September of this year, me and the rest of my grade went to Borlerlands Kithulgala, for our DP orientation. Borderlands is an adventure sports located on a river. The DP, or diploma programme is part of the International Baccalaureate programme, which we follow here at OSC, and some of the main intentions behind this 3 day trip are team building and collaboration. The DP is a rigorous programme, and is very demanding no matter the subjects or courses you select, so the orientation allowed us to come together as a grade and understand that we all need to support each other to make this process easier on ourselves and our peers. The 3 days we spent together consisted of various activities such as canyoning, white water rafting, jumping off high rock faces, and swimming in the river we were staying on.

Borderlands Kithulgala via google maps;

On our first evening, we had a small task to do before dinner. Our DP coordinator, and one of the teachers that came on our trip with us, Dr.Leigh, told us to write a letter about your day to someone important to us, about any impactful or significant moments that had happened earlier that day. The day consisted of white water rafting, canyoning and floating up the river to camp. I wrote my letter to my brother about 2 impactful moments I had that day, one indovidually, and one with my rafting team.

Dear Ben,

On our first day at borderlands, we started off meeting very early at school and made our way up to kithulgala. Our first stop was somewhere along the river and we stopped to do white water rafting. We were greeted by Wade, the owner of borderlands along with some of the guides who helped us put on life jackets, helmets and paddles, before splitting us into 4 groups. My group consisted of 6 people, Ms. Melinda, Ethan, Vinuda, Vansh, Kasun (one of the guides) and myself. Wade conducted a safety briefing in which we learned that we would be rafting through class 2 and 3 rapids, which can be quite intense. On the water, the class 2 rapids werent to bad, and we made out way through without any mishaps. Once we reached the class 3 rapids however, it got significantly more difficult and we had to work harder together to make it down the river. On the last rapid, our boat got stuck on a rock and so following Kasuns instructions of when to paddle, and when to stop, we worked to get untstuck by jumpoing up and down, along with shifting our weight from side to side to balance the boat. Eventually, after a few minutes we managed to get the boat unstuck, and had a fun rest of the way down the river. Another impactful moment that I had at the end of the first day was when it was time to float down the river to the borderlands camp. It was gloomy weather and we were all damp and cold from the rafting, so when entering the water it was absoultely freezing! However,  some of my classmates who were already in the river advised me to jump fully underwater and dunk my head in, and it would be much better. It was a big push to do so but I also remembered thisath saying ‘mind over matter’ and so it gave me the motivation to go under, and then the rest of the float back to camp was enjoyable and we all kept each other busy by talking and conversing. 

From, Lara

Day 2:

We woke up nice and early on day two of the trip. The plan for today was to do some canyoning at marvel canyons, and the part we were all excited about; the 10 meter jump down from the top of a rock into a pool of water. We had breakfast, followed by a quick swim in the river, which was really cold so we were in and out fast. We packed our things, got dressed and got on the bus to make the trip to Marvel Canyons. After gearing up with our helmets, life jackets, rain jackets etc, we took a path down from the road to the river’s edge. The trail was littered with creepy crawlies and leeches, and we all watched waiting for them to try to sneak into our shoes, flicking them off quickly. The canyoning overall was a very fun experience. The guides set up ropes and the material for each section, before having one of us wait with them to instruct each other on how to get down/what to do, working on our leadership skills. Once we got down, we waited with our classmates for everyone to come down, and regroup. While waiting we got to see the beautiful views of the Marvel canyon, and how far down it went. We also had many conversations about building glass windowed houses overlooking the beautiful view. 

Eating lunch after morning activities

Finally, it was time for the  10 meter jump. There was an option for those who did not want to jump down to the zipline, however I really wanted to experience the jump down. When it was my turn, overlooking the edge, I was scared, but mostly excited and filled with adrenaline. After listening to the instructions on how to land and keep my hands, I jumped. I slashed into the water in an ok landing position, a little to the side, but all in all, excited about what I had just done. I swam over to the river bank with the others, as we watched the rest of our grade make their jump. Later on, back at camp, we climbed the giant ladder. This task was all about teamwork and a lot of stregnth to get to the top of the ladder. Me and Maya, my partner, made it almost to the top, but did not quite make it, however we were still proud of the way we planned our tactics and worked together. After a shower and some dinner, our evening task was to make a shadow puppet of something we saw canyoing today. We would later use these in our cave activity tomorrow. I made the rock face that we did the 10-meter jump off. Then after some nice chill time in the common area, we were off to bed.

Spectating the 10 meter jump

Finally, the lasy day. Today was a TOK day in a cave by a waterfall, a CAS tradition that has been done for some years. We woke up, swam in the river, and got on the bus to the cave. We spent some time climbing up to reach one of the many caves. We put our bags down, had a snack and explored the first cave, before heading up to one of the other caves. When we got to the main cave, we each used flashlights and our shadow puppets to project the images we created onto the walls, talking about how it would feel to be one of the people in “Platos Cave”– a concept we studied in TOK. After the cave, we came back to the camp, did some activities, packed up, and got on the bus for the journey back home. 

Overall I thought this was a very sucessgull and enjoyable experience with the whole grade. In this trip, I was able to effectively, ‘Identify my strengths and develop areas for growth.”- My stregnths, I would say, were the physical elements, making the jumps, being comfortable in the water, etc, and I was also able to identify some of my weaker points, which is needing to learn how to use my stregnths in a collaborative situation, e.g- the giant ladder. The orientation trip also helped me “Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process,” as this trip, I learned all about the river, as well as how to understand and read the water. Valuable information and experiences also helped me shape my mindset to be stronger, and effectively challenged myself more by being able to give myself that mental push, when I know it can be physically done, e.g- the 10 meter jump.