Trip to Durshet with school friends

This was a trip arranged by my classmates via the school so that we could enjoy in the last days of our school life together…

DAY1

Journey – I boarded the bus near my house at 8 in the morning on Sunday… It was fun to be with my friends for a trip outside our school. I was really excited and looked forward for all the adventure that I was going to have. We reached the area at Durshet at 10 – late due to taking a wrong road on the way. Then we were divided into two groups and were given breakfast…

Breakfast – Poha, Tea-coffee

Assembly – When we assembled, the group which assembled first got 10 points. This was our group (Yippee!)…

Flag making - After my classmates were divided into two groups earlier to create the environment of competition, we were asked to come up with a group name, group slogan and make a flag for our groups.  Our group’s name was Courageous Cheetahs and the opponents were the Crazy Cobras.

Numbers games – We were given a crazy situation for this game. This game’s environment was based such that a bomb that could wipe out humanity has been activated. To deactivate this bomb, the numbers 1 to 30 have to be stamped-on in ascending order within thirty seconds (The numbers are scattered on the floor). This round was won by my team (Yippee!) completing it in 22 seconds and won 20 points.

Wall climbing – This activity involved an artificial wall provided with ‘holds’… Places on the wall where we can hold with our hands and feet. We were tied to a safety rope and harness so that in case we fall, we are hanging with the rope around our waist… After reaching top, we had to leave the wall and come down with the rope…

 (Sorry for the video being rotated sideways)

Parallel traverse – This is an adventure activity involving two ropes tied at a height difference of about four and a half feet. The feet have to be placed on the lower rope and the upper rope has to be held by our hands. After climbing, we have to move to the other end by pushing ourselves forward. But, it was not as easy as it seems… The ropes start to wiggle as we reach the middle!...

Barrel roll – This was the activity that I found toughest… This activity involved a person walking on a cylindrical barrel filled with mud and stones… None of us could complete this activity… (Soooo difficult!)

Lunch – Roti-bhaji, Dal, Rice, Papad, Salad

Nature alphabets – This was a tough activity. Everyone knows the English alphabet right? Well nature alphabets involved this… We had to find things in the nature from each alphabet… For every alphabet we found a thing gets us 5 points; a rare thing gives 5 bonus points… We had to show the things as evidences. Our team found the rare thing honeycomb while the others found a dead scorpion! In this, we got equal points – 70 points each team…

Photo hunt – This was a nature game… This game involved each team getting equal number and same things to find except that we could find only one thing at a time. Then we show the photo to our sir and take the next chit… Unfortunately, we lost this time… We could not find one photo and the other team also got a bonus of 10 points getting the scores to 45 and 60…

Swimming (Described in Day 2)

Dinner – Roti-bhaji, Dal, Rice, French fries, Papad, Salad

Night trek - There was a night trek planned for us after our dinner... We were scared by telling stories of ghosts but we were used to it due to what we had experienced in Adventure Pulse the previous year. We saw a frog and that was the only photo we took... At the end of the road was a tree called the ghost tree due to its colour... After that we came down by a different route... Both the routes were tiring...

Night – We were allotted rooms such that 4 boys and one sir were in one room, 4 girls and one ma’am were in one room and the remaining 6 boys in one room. I was in the third room and due to excitement none of were able to sleep until 12:30 in the night!

DAY2

Wake up – at 6:30… Everyone woke up one by one which is why we even left those who were reluctant to get up in the room itself!

Breakfast – Idli, Sambhar, Uttampam, Tea-coffee

Burma Bridge – This adventure activity was an easy one… This consisted of one rope tied between two trees (a very strong one) and two more ropes parallel to each other at a higher level. Our activity was to walk on the lower rope holding the higher ropes… This was an activity I knew very well as I had done it earlier… So, I could complete this one easily…

Flying fox – Flying fox or zip-line is an easy but very enjoyable activity. You are pushed down a wire with a wheel… This activity involves pulleys as the circular thing above the wire pulls us down the inclined wire… As soon as you are pushed, it is just zooooommmmm…

Rappelling – This was in my opinion the most difficult adventure activity… It involved walking down an almost vertical cliff (obviously with harness)… Even if once a person looks down, he/she will get the fear of falling down. Well, I at least completed it! (Yippee!)… You are supposed to push forward the rope in your hand and throw yourself backwards…

Tarzan jump – This was the activity which I hesitated at doing first but enjoyed thoroughly later… It involved a pool of muddy water with a tree next to it… From a branch exactly above the pool, was a rope hung… Using this rope, we had to cross to the other side of the pool… It was quite difficult which is why in every attempt I fell into the water due to being pushed back by my classmates…

Tribal queen – This was an activity involving creativity… Using anything out of nature, we had to dress any one boy of our group as the tribal queen… Both the teams chose to decorate their team captains… We used all sorts of flowers and leaves but still we were left behind by the other team… We scored 35 while the others scored full 50… This got the total scores to equal…

Lunch – Roti-bhaji, Dal, Rice, Papad, Salad

Marbles and pipe – This was a tough game… With a time limit of 12 minutes, arranging small pieces of pipe, we had to put the marble into a glass about 10 metres away… We had to continuously run from one end of the line to the other end to stop the marble from falling! My team managed 4 marbles getting 20 points while the opponents 6 marbles bragging of 30 points…

Swimming – Swimming was activity conducted on both days of our trip. Each day, we were given about one and a half hours to swim… Although I could not swim I enjoyed quite a lot in the water as we played water games and I could also hold breathe underneath so I tried underwater swimming… Also, due to the shape of the swimming pool having two levels, we all tried jumping from the top level! That was the most fun part…

Cooking food – This was also a competition! We cooked food – Pulao on a fire. It was a difficult task as none of us had good cooking skills… But we finally managed to make some (and forgot to put salt!)… A bit of cheating made us win (sprinkle salt on it later)… We got 50 points and the others just trailing behind with 40 points…

Dinner – Rice, Dal, Noodles, Fried rice, Salad, Papad, French Fries (and of course our hand-made Pulao)

Campfire – The campfire was a sort of relaxing time provided to all of us… We could do anything sitting outside around the campfire… It made us feel warm and reflect on the trip completed until then… After some relaxation, we saw another school group playing some song games and we laughed watching them… To close this activity, we played Dumb Charades enjoyed by many children…

Night – The boys of our class had different plans … 8 of them took up one room while I joined my best friend and sir in one room (in a way I was happy to have one whole bed for myself)… After campfire, we could not sleep as we wanted to spend one last night together… We slept finally at 1:30!

DAY3

Wake up – at 7:00… Today the 8 boys didn’t get up at all! We waited and waited but they did not budge from their beds… We decided to do some fun with them in the form of a punishment so we locked the room and went off for breakfast.

Breakfast – Maggi, Poha, Tea-coffee

Laddering - This activity was not as easy as at seemed due to being a rope ladder rather than a wooden ladder... As soon as you start climbing, the ladder starts to move making it difficult to put your next step. But, all of us completed it... No one hesitated to do this activity as we were attached to a harness.

Reflection of trip – All of us sat together and reflected on how we enjoyed the three days.

Treasure hunt – This game was a tie-breaker and also an interesting activity to do… We had to find objects hidden over a 5 acre plot of the Pugmarks campus! A single of each object was hidden at a different place… The team that finds first gets it. Each object had two accompanying clues – one for the object and another for the place. My group managed 5 getting 25 points while the others found 3 getting 15 points making our group win!!!!

Certificate distribution

Lunch – Roti-bhaji, Salad, Dal, Rice, Papad

Announcing winner group:

Activity	Courageous cheetahs (my group) – Group 1	Crazy cobras (the opponents) – Group 2	Leading team
Assembly	10	0	Group 1
Numbers game	20	0	Group 1
Nature alphabets	70	70	Group 1
Photo hunt	45	60	Group 1
Tribal queen	35	50	Equaled
Marbles and pipe	20	30	Group 2
Cooking food	50	40	Equaled
Treasure hunt	25	15	Group 1
Total/Winner	275	265	Group 1!!

Journey back home – This journey was not very exciting… Everyone was sad that this was the last trip for all of us together. Everyone was silent as it was a short trip back (we did not lose our way once again). I got down near my home at 4:30 and was very tired after the last merry trip with my friends in my high school life… 

Some time pass photos