Last year I participated in the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award program and I decided to continue with the Silver award program. In this program 26 hours of skill, physical recreation, service and an adventurous journey needs to be completed. After completing an orienteering lesson with Major Ruwan, we learnt different skills that we would need during the adventurous journey such as mapping and coordinates.
DAY 1
We began our preliminary adventurous journey at 4:30 in the morning at school ready to leave at around 5:00. Slowly the group of silver candidates rolled into school with their big packs on before getting on the bus to immediately fall asleep on our way up to Knuckles on the windy mountain roads. We stopped approximately half way through in for our breakfast and bathroom break where we practiced some orienteering to identify where we were by using landmarks, roads and geographical features we found. This activity was the first time where we were separated into our different teams that we were going to work with for the rest of the trip; my team was Andrew, Lenny, Emma, Rizqi and I. After this we continued on to camp on the bus. Once we got to camp we got separated into groups for our designated tents, as Emma was the only other girl in my group.
After setting up our tents, eating lunch and getting ready for our first hike we began by orienteering ourselves at camp. As a group we identified our camp site and set out different roles for the hike. The different roles in the group are leader, navigator, scout, pace keeper, map holder and the medic. We assigned roles and for this first hike I carried the compass and was the navigator. Finally, we began the first hike and every once in a while, our group would record the data we needed for orienteering after the hike. The views from the mountains we hiked were of the unique environment of Knuckles that few of us had ever seen before. Knuckles is a mountain range in Sri Lanka that is less well known than places such as Horton Plains and Sinharaja. As we were doing a hike around the camp site area, we mainly saw secondary forest and tea estates, but we did pass and hike through some areas of primary forest.
Due to our late arrival we left camp for the hike later than anticipated, therefore, as we were hiking we were able to watch the sun set over the mountains. Although the sunset was beautiful, it almost meant that we had to hike the rest of the way in the dark. Even better, the rest of the way was steep uphill alongside tea plantations to complete the loop of our 8km hike. After finding the few people that had flashlights and carefully following them all the way up the hill we finally saw the lights coming from our campsite. We hiked in from the back entrance and immediately grabbed our clothes and ran to the showers. Here we were faced with the freezing cold showers where we just had to periodically jump in for a couple seconds and try to clean as much as possible. We then ate a nice dinner of rice and curry before heading back into our tents to sleep.
DAY 2
I was woken up by the sound of Mr. Lockwood yelling at us to wake up and Emma and I (still sore from yesterday’s hike) reluctantly got out of our warm sleeping bags to head out for hot milk tea and breakfast. Then we began to prepare for the hike to Corbet’s gap by getting changed and assigning roles for the day, I was the medic for this hike.
The beginning of the walk started out the same as the previous day as we walked up to a small village but this time instead of turning right we went into the forest. Here there was a gradual incline as we were going up a mountain until we reached Corbet’s gap, a well-known viewpoint in the area.
As we got higher in the mountain the fog started rolling in and it was difficult to even see 5-10m ahead. Unfortunately, due to the fog we were unable to see the view from Corbet’s gap so instead we took some group photos, ate snacks, orienteered ourselves again before heading back down the mountain the same way we came. We set off down the mountain quite quickly as we were already familiar with the surroundings and route we were taking.
Soon after we were on our way it started drizzling before turning into heavy rain and quickly all of the rain jackets, umbrellas and waterproof covers came out. Then the groups began to separate as everyone’s sole purpose was to make it back to camp as soon as possible to avoid being in the cold rain for any longer. Finally, we reached the village adjacent to the entrance of the forest and to our surprise the buses were there to pick us up. While waiting for the final people to catch up, we discovered that most of our rain gear only worked to an extent, in other words we everything and everyone got completely soaked. In the bus we made ineffective attempts to “de-leech” one another using a spray that Karven had created as we drove to camp.
As soon as we parked we ran down to camp to take yet another cold shower. Although putting on dry warm clothes helped, none of us were quite prepared for the cold that the rain brought. After eating lunch and completing our route card (after piecing together information from the wet notebook) everyone had some down time to rest. As the wind and rain swirled around our tent, Muneera and I wrapped ourselves in our blankets and sleeping bags before taking a nap.
When we went out again we found our friends sitting on the benches with blankets wrapped around them playing cards like grandmas and we quickly joined in. Thankfully on this cold day we had a fire going where we attempted to dry our clothes and the barbecue turned on ready for us to cook the chicken for dinner. We helped set up the barbecue before putting on over 20 chicken legs on the barbecue for our big group and later on we were introduced to barbecue pineapple by our guides.
DAY 3
Today we woke up prepared to set off on our final trek before heading home to Colombo in the afternoon. As some of the Bronze candidates were not required to go on this hike we did not have to take on roles as all the groups were missing people. We set off on our hike and I realized quite quickly that it difficult and going to be a challenging hike. For what felt like hours of the hike we were climbing up steep uphill alongside tea estates which featured some massive boulders. Once we reached the conservation area the walkway started to widen and flatten out.
After hiking on that path for a while longer we went down the side of the mountain on a rocky wet surface through a sky full of fog. Then we entered into a less established pathway where we struggled through the thick forest before opening up to the Kotaganga falls. We nervously approached the water before deciding to just jump in to immediately realize that it was freezing! We couldn’t stay in for long partly because it was freezing and partly because we needed time to get back to Colombo. Then we headed back the way we came still wet and cold from our swim but satisfied nonetheless. When we got back to camp we made sure to make the people who didn’t hike know the spectacular hike they missed out on before washing off, packing and cleaning up our tents for the way back. We then hopped on the buses for our 7-hour journey back to Colombo.
