Expeditions completed!

Took my CCA kids out for their annual round island expedition last weekend, and am glad the whole thing was completed without much hiccups. The planning was hellish for me, as I was the only one slaving away to cobble up the program, and there were many different parties I had to liaise with.

Thank goodness I had Jame's help on the expedition for spontaneous problem-solving. There was endless things to worry about and it was fortunate that he decided to hang around for the entire expedition to help me out with the planning.


The most important thing I have learnt on the trip - Time for facilitation of the experiences should not be compromised! Must learn how to do it properly too, and must somehow teach the other teachers as well.


I am glad to hear from a few of the kids that they really enjoyed the whole thing, and that really makes me wonder (like last year) if I can outdo this next year ha. One of them said that she slept 2 hours for the two nights! I slept more, but then, I worry more during the trip too ha.

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And then I am back today from a river paddling race, after leaving yesterday! James and I left from Golden Mile at 8pm, and ended up in Serimbun bus station at 2pm, where we were picked up to rest at the accomodation. After a short nap, we work up at 7am and waited a long while for breakfast beforewe were told to go to the competition grounds to consume that instead.


The water level was very low, and that made the river race poor in quality. On the flat stretches, one couldn't plant a full blade into the water to paddle without hitting the bottom, and on the rapids, much of the boulders were exposed. We scrapped over the rocks countless times, and many including myself got stuck when we couldn't control our boats round the narrow gaps where the water runs between the rocks.


It was frustrating to get stuck so often, and up till now I still don't know if my ability to choose my paddling line down the river was so poor, or if it was the length of the boat that gave me problems (though others were using even longer boats). All thoughts of competing vanished pretty soon, and I told myself I'll rather try enjoying the experience instead.


Alas, things were not that easy. The rapids were over within the hour, and we paddled a flat stretch to the finishing line, which we were told was about 5km away. We ended up paddling for 2 hours downriver! It's unbelievable how a river race can have such an extensive flat stretch, which I have to remind again, was so shallow that it made paddling very awkward. James and I kept wondering if we missed the end point, took a wrong turn etc etc...


Finally we reached the end, the coming in 3rd and 4th from last. We couldn't care less, and we decided that there's no way we'll want to do this again the next day. So we hurriedly made arrangements to leave, hitching a ride with this small group going to KL for a climb before returning back to the event that evening.

So in one day, I paddled in a river race, visited Camp 5 climbing center (it was truly cavernous), had a great dinner, and took the bus back to Singapore, reaching at 5am. Quite a fruitful day actually, but pity the quality of the paddling.