Ok i am back alive ... just.
No I'm kidding, it wasn't that bad, but i was stuck in the open for two days.
From flies to leeches
and birds and screeches.
With heavy gear
and many a tear.
No toilet, no shower
and snacks for power.
Over mountains we went
living in a tent
but ...
I'll never forget
this we spent
It'll remain in my memory forever.
That's pretty much a summary of the two days, but i'll go into a bit more detail, so i can remember the detail in years to come ...
The ten of us doing Duke of Ed and the two teachers set off approximately 8:45 Thursday morning for a one hour bus trip. We got there and had a snack. Not far from this place was a waterfall area that me and three others went down to see.
Then we set off on our hike with everyone's backpack weighing appr. 13kg. Since this was the second time we were going and the one we were being marked on, so the teacher left everything up to us, including in which direction we had to go, so it was our fault if we got lost.
After about half an hour walking, this dog, which we named Stevie, walked out of its property and followed us. We continued deeper into the bush and it stayed with us, pretty much to then end of our whole hike.
When we entered a forest area we encountered our first leech attack on Angelina. By the end of the day everyone had at least three leeches on them. They weren't quite what i imagined them to be, being much smaller, but luckily no one lost any blood, flicking the leech off before they could do any damage.
We didn't really walk that much on the first day only about 8km and at 3:30 we arrived at our campsite. It took everyone about an hour to set up, their tent, sleeping bag and mattress and their cooking utensils. Four tents, two with three people and two with two people, i was in the three-man tent.
For dinner most people had two minute noodles, after boiling water with the 'cooker'. Then everyone just mucked around until it got dark before retiring to their tent.
There was just one other problem, there was no toilet at all so we all had to dig a hole and do our business, which proved to be quite challenging for some as the group was all girls.
During the night there was one incident. You could hear everyone talking in their tents, when all of a sudden Stevie [the dog from the beginning, still with us] started barking. Everyone went quiet, grabbed each other and silently imagined some morbid reason as to why the dog was barking. The dog stopped and there was an eerie silence. We eventually called out to each other to confirm that everyone was alright.
The next morning after a wet night and an uncomfortable sleep, most of us got up around 5:30 when the sun had just risen, had breaksfast and set out about 7:30.
This second day was much more arduous than the first. We walked about 12km and this time not just along flat forest but up steep mountains with many step, along a road at one stage, through the bush with many flies and alongside a river with fortunately no more leeches.
We had to get rid of Stevie as we could't bring her on the train with us even though by now we all loved her and she loved us but we had to leave her at a nearby house.
We continued walking for the rest of the day and towards the end everyone had ran out of water and we were cautiously conserving what little amount of water we had left.
The last kilometer and a half was downhill and everyone was ran for joy when they saw the little abandoned railway station. When we dropped off Stevie we fell an hour behind schedule so we caught the train an hour after the schduled time. We caught two trains back to Fairfield station, arriving at 4:00 where everyone went home.
Labels: Duke of Ed
