For Duke of Edinburgh all candidates have to go through the Preliminary Adventurous Journey (PAJ) to get the award. We did this journey during the 21st-23rd of November and we went to Knuckles. Throughout the journey we went on a total of 3 hikes. These being to Thangappuwa, Corbet’s Gap and Kotaganga Falls. These 3 hikes are visible in the below map.

A map of the 3 hikes (From Mr. Ian Lockwood)

Day 1

We planned to leave OSC bright and early at 4:45, however got delayed and left at 5:30. The journey to the place where we were staying, Knuckles Base Camp, took around 5 and a half hours, and we stopped in Ambepussa. At Ambepussa we had a snack and also met Major Ruwan and his team. We got into our teams for the journey and did some orienteering to locate ourselves and find where we were and where we were going. We also decided on our roles for the day, and I chose to be leader.

After this break we continued to Knuckles Base Camp and got their at around 1:30. We had some lunch and then began on our first hike around the Thangappuwa area. We hiked around, and I started my Focus Project. For the Silver Award we have to do a project during the journey. I decided to take pictures of flowers we encountered during the hikes. During this hike I did this and took pictures. For my Focus Project I am going to edit these photos and make a gallery with the flower pictures. Here are a couple of pictures I took on this hike;

Images taken by me during the hike

After the hike we got back to camp, reflected on the journey and had a nice filling dinner.

Day 2

On the second day of the journey we got up at 6 o’clock and had a filling breakfast. On today’s hike we would do all the jobs for the journey, and we would be filling in our route cards. I elected to be the scout for the journey, and I would be noting down things we see during the journey. I would be noting down where we stopped, what times and what is around us at the time, etc.

We started the hike at around 9 am and spent 5 hours hiking. We started on the road and after around an hour we entered the Knuckles reservation area. Here we got into the forest and went through the forest for the rest of the entire hike. At Corbets Gap there should be a beautiful view, however it was very foggy on the day we hiked, so we couldn’t see anything at all. We then hiked back, but halfway through the hike it started to rain. This made the rest of the hike miserable as we all just wanted to get back to the tents, instead of walking through the muddy, leech infested path. Throughout all this hiking I was taking photos of flowers for my focus project, but because of the rain I couldn’t take as many as I hoped to. Here are some of the photos I took on this hike;

More images taken by me on the second hike

We got back to camp and since everyone was very tired we didn’t do any more hiking for the day. We had a ‘siesta’ and in the afternoon got into our teams and worked on our route cards. We put some good work onto the route cards and made them very detailed. After this we had dinner and got ready for a long hike up a mountain tomorrow.

Day 3

Today was the last day of the journey. We again got up early and left earlier than yesterday at 8:30. The first part of the hike was in the open fields across a few hills. There were some beautiful views, and it wasn’t tiring also because it was very windy. However, after an hour we got onto the beaten path to get to the hard part of the hike. We started out ascent up the mountain. This was very tiring and we stopped many times, but once we got to the top of the mountain we started going downhill in an open area. We followed a small river and went back into the jungle to get to the prize of the hike, which was a waterfall. We all quickly jumped into the waterfall, but it was freezing could so we didn’t stay in for long.

At Kotaganga Falls (Image By Mr. Ian Lockwood)

I was a bit too hasty getting out as I slipped and bruised my arm, and had a sting on my arm for the rest of the way back to camp. Thankfully it didn’t rain on the way back, and once we got back to camp we had a quick shower, a quick lunch and packed out bags onto the bus and began the long ride to OSC. We got back to school at 8:00. This definitely was the best DOE trip, the hikes were fun and the location was great, and I definitely can’t wait for the Adventurous Journey in May.

My Focus Project

The above collection of images is my focus project. In this I collected images taken throughout the day during the first hike. As visible in the first image, it is the middle of the day, and slowly as time passes it is slowly getting darker, until the last image where the sun has nearly set. I just came up with this idea by just looking through my images and seeing the sky getting darker and darker.

Learning Outcomes

On the DOE Preliminary Adventurous Journey the main learning outcome that I related to was ‘demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively’. The reason I think this is because throughout the entire journey we worked together as teams, and I definitely recognized the importance of working as a team. Dividing roles upon ourselves makes us do work very effectively, and in turn allowed us to make a detailed route card.