Featured Image by Mr. Ian Lockwood
Day 1
It was 4am in the morning when I woke up excited for an ESS adventure to the Peak Wilderness. At 6:10 am, I reached school to find out that some of my ESS classmates would be missing out on the trip. This kind of ruined my first 2 hours of the trip. But after we reached Borderlands, It got a bit better as I sat next to my friends and ate breakfast. After that, we went for our first adventure which was finding the rare Daffodil Orchid (Ipsea Speciosa). For that, we went to the train station which was the place it was spotted in last year’s ESS trip. Also, since it is January it was a nice time to visit as we would find a lot of them ( which we did!). It was really nice to find these as I was scared we might not find anything as it was a pretty rare orchid. I think we might have found the place where it grows since it was found in the same place last year.
Daffodil Orchid
Anyways, while looking at the orchid I felt something on my legs and as I pulled my pants up it revealed some leeches on my legs which freaked me and Anargi (ESS Classmate) out. We got down to the train tracks where Ms. De Jong helped us get rid of them. Then we went to see a plane crash monument where we also saw the seven virgin mountains. They’re called this because nobody has climbed those mountains.
Plane Crash Site
Seven Virgin Mountains
After this, we drove for an hour to get to wathsala inn (Restaurant) where I had a nice chicken kottu lunch. From there, we got a view of the top of Adams Peak. After the delicious lunch, we again drove around for an hour to get to our accommodation (Blue Magpie Lodge). While going there we stopped at a viewpoint to take some nice pictures and pick out some tea leaves. We spotted a lot of different birds and also Red Hibiscus Trees. I and Rizqi decided to jog to the Lodge since it was very nearby. Jogging down to the lodge surrounded by tea plantations, mountains, trees, birds were really really nice. Finally, we arrived at the lodge which looked like a replica of borderlands but much more modern.
Blue Magpie Lodge
We put our bags in the room and went to the stream connected to our lodge. I jumped into the stream and wow it was extremely cold! and it had to be since we were at a higher altitude. We took photos and had a really fun time in the stream and also the view was spectacular!
By the Stream
Photo Credits: Ms. Dejeong
After that, we drank some tea and had dinner. At night, we went outside to look for frogs, couldn’t find the rare blue frog but we did find a lot of different types. We also found an otter. Finally, to end the day off we played UNO, sang songs and reflected.
Frog hunt at night
DAY 2
We woke up at 6:30am in the morning to chill out by the beautiful stream and also drank a cup of coffee with this lovely scenic view. I have seen views with stream before in borderlands but this was extremely beautiful because of the views of the mountains mixed with a lot of fog and cold morning air. This is also where I shot parts of my short film for visual arts which is called “The world is a hopeless hell” which focusses on climate change and its effects on a dystopian Earth. After that, we dropped our bags off in a truck and headed off to Sri Pada. There was a change in our landscape as we went from mono-culture (tea leaves) into extreme biodiversity. Hiking up the first half was extremely challenging. This being my second time ever hiking, I did suffer. There was some flat land after a while where we did stop to eat some snacks which gave me the energy to back in. After that, the second session of the hike was for the first part very downhill which I didn’t face any difficulties with. This is also where we stopped to have our bottles filled and also where we spotted a lot of different species of frogs. The search for the extremely rare blue toad was still on. While we didn’t find that we did see a camouflaged frog that got away before being captured in photos. but we did trap a lot of nice frogs and took pictures and after that let them go back to the wilderness.
Frogs spotted on our way to Sri Pada
We also did see a yellow bulbul which is an uncommon bird. After that, the second part was again a bit difficult not as much as the start but I made it. We got to a very flat patch where we took a nap and had some lunch. It gave us a really nice view of Sri pada mountain and sometimes it got covered by the clouds.
Photo taken below Sri Pada
Photo Credits: Mr. Lockwood
The climb up to Sri Pada was the most exhausting thing I have ever done in my life. It was getting frustrating because as soon as I felt it was getting easier, it kept becoming even harder. Finally, when I thought we had made it to the easiest part of the stairs. The stairs were also extremely hard as I was kind of getting dizzy looking at the stairs to the top. Finally after maybe 400m of steps and a small break at a shop. We finally made it to the top. At the top, there was a temple that we visited which has the footprint of Buddha. Afterward, we had some nice conversation and bonded with some of my ESS classmates. We ate some Pita Bread with hummus and it was time to sleep. All in All, it was an extremely nice day with my classmates. Even though there were those extremely difficult paths. I think it was definitely worth it.
Conversation
Photo Credits: Mr. Lockwood
Sleeping at the Temple
Photo Credits: Mr. Lockwood
DAY 3
The sleep at the temple was not great. I only had a sleep of 4 hours. I woke up at around 2 o’clock and after that was unable to fall asleep. I spent the rest of the night twisting and turning trying to fall asleep. But I couldn’t due to the music going on in the temple. Finally, it was time to wake up at 6, to see the sunrise. We headed into the temple to have a glance at but it was pretty crowded. Did we get to see the sunrise? Unfortunately, not as the clouds covered it for us! However, we did see an outline though.
Outline of the sunrise
As it was really cold, All my classmates went back to their sleeping bags. While I just stayed up listened to some songs and stretched a bit to get ready for the hike down. At around 8:45am, we started going down using the stairs. I was actually feeling pretty positive that steps were going to be quite easier compared to hike through the forest. But wow, I was so wrong. Going down really hurt my knees and heel. I still feel like it wasn’t as difficult as the hike. After a while, We entered a forest path to go to the Hatton steps. The path was filled with rocks and I was slipping and falling a lot. While going down, I kept on looking at the view of Sri Pada as it gave me the hope that we are almost nearly there. I think it took us around 5 hours to come back down. It felt really nice coming back to the flat land.
Resting after coming back down from Sri Pada
Photo Credits: Mr. Lockwood
After that, we headed to borderlands where we had some delicious biryani for lunch and then finally reached OSC at 6:50pm. Overall, the trip was way more fun than I had expected and the best outcome from the trip was that I bonded with my ESS classmates.