
sucessfully completed
Final exams are the conclusion of an academic year. When it happened in our school, we were happy that soon, it would be time to relax. Our exams were spread over a month and before it really started we were making plans as to where to go after exams. The deal was that we had continuous school till 20th April even though we finished exams at the end of March. So, the school was taking us to a trip and we chose honnemardu which is my uncle’s centre for adventurous sports situated in shimogga on the backwaters of river sharavati. The dates got finalized and we also finished our exams gradually. We were to start on 28th by a midnight train to shimogga. We reached shimogga very early in the morning and were feeling as sticky as we could. We went to have a wash but there was no waiting room in the station. We took a bus to talguppa and from there we hired a quailis and went onward to reach our destination. At honnemardu we were warmly received by my aunt, who at once provided our growling stomachs with good breakfast. We were told to change, freshen up and dress suitably and roughly for the wilderness. We then went on our campus introduction tour, where we were introduced to the surroundings we were to be with the next 3 days. We were then briefed about the rules and how things at honnemardu functioned. My aunt’s name is Nomito and our instructor for the whole program was Ashok. The starting of our program was with a little activity called “greeting the sky” which was based on the value of unity and how things can be made easier by working as a single unit. In this activity we were to hoist up a person lying on the ground together using all our strength and hands. We were able to hoist everybody in the group up.

hoist up
After that we put on our swimming clothes and also our life jackets. We swam quite a distance from the mainland to a small island. We all had fun and the people who did not know swimming like my H.M and two other girls swum with us comfortably. We came back and headed straight for lunch to the base camp or else known as the medical centre. We were exhausted and asked for some time to rest and it was granted. We changed to our dry clothes and suddenly it started to rain. We all cooped in our small room for warmth and enjoyed the rain. Later, my aunt & the instructor came to our room instead of the base. We then went to have some quiet time, in order to analyze things and rethink our behavior at times and many other important things like that. On the way back to our room, we were stopped for an activity which was totally fun, challenging in terms of how fast you can use your brain in times of trouble. It was at the first look, just a rope tied between two plants. Later it was told to be considered as an electric fencing. We had to imagine that we were in grave danger from elephants and at a point have to cross a electric fence. How as a group would we do it? Again the objective being unity and also a meaning that people in times of trouble are ready to receive anybodies help even if they are the bitterest enemies. We took the activity challengingly but did not succeed that well in the starting. The method in which the game functioned was that people should pass over the rope and the minutest touch to it makes the person dead. We tried it and after no success went back for circle time (which is a meeting done to discuss things in a circle formation as we are heard by one and all). We determined the problem and tried the activity again this time in the room and succeeded.

electric fence game
After this it was time for dinner and we went back to the medical centre and before dinner played a game of antakshari and had dinner and went to get a good night’s sleep. DAY 2: We were to get up and be ready early the next morning in order to start trekking in the cool weather and be back in time for breakfast. We trekked to ‘bhimana hegge’ where obviously were Bhima’s footprints.we stumbled, mumbled and grumbled during the trek. We had fun and on coming back had tasty aloo parathas. We then got into water but this time to learn how to paddle. There is no facility of water for bath in honnemardu and there are no bathrooms only toilets. We are to have a bath in the open area if wanted. We learnt paddling which was something very new to us and also very fun. Believe me it hurts when tried first. By then the sun was scorching and we were to paddle to an island to spend a night there. We packed essentials, camping equipments and distributed it equally to all the coracles (teppa) and set off.

paddling
We had great fun paddling in competition to each other. When we reached the campsite we had to hunt in the forest area for firewood. We found some and by then the sun had set and it was dark. Ashok had started pitching tents and after that we played ‘dum sharas’. We then dined and went into our tent. A tent comprised of 5 members and my group known as ‘the famous 5’ comprising of myself, preksha, namitha, sagarika and pooja were in 1 tent. We are one good and fun group who stick to each other and have lots of secrets. We (i.e the 5) played ‘truth or dare’ in the tent and kept speaking till midnight while the others were snoring peacefully. After sometime we were reminded by my aunt to sleep and we had to sleep. DAY 3: After learning how to make a campfire, the previous evening, we learnt another important thing that is to extinguish the campfire before leaving the campsite. After learning the extinguishing part we had to smear ash mixed with water to our faces in which we had fun smearing it on others faces also. We were ready to start back and we were given the choice to either swim or paddle back to the mainland. I opted for paddling as I had already had an experience in swimming and paddling was exciting preksha, pooja, sagarika and namitha swam the whole way through and after reaching the mainland we unloaded the luggage and washed the coracles. Afterwards we were all ready to go further with our land activities.
The first in that day series was one called shepherding that was to do with how communicative we can be without the use of speaking medium. I was to be the shepherd and the others were dumb and blind sheep, I as a shepherd had the power to see but not speak. I had to guide the sheep into the pen through a gate without making them touch any other part of the pen and only with sounds. I.e. by clapping, clicking of the tongue etc. we were good at it and only 3 among 10 sheep’s died and then nomito aunty asked everybody else than we 9 and herself to leave. Now we knew there was an serious activity to be done. It was called ‘hotseat’ and it was a activity where a person will be blindfolded like the previous game and will be told to sit in the centre of our circle and one by one people will point out the negative points of the person in the centre. We have to take it sportively and change ourselves as much as we can. After this hot session we were to do ‘service project’. Every team that goes to honnemardu has to do its bit for honnemardu and we had to bring firewood for cooking. We brought large logs of wood. We were exhausted by the time we finished it and by then it was time for us to leave honnemardu and back to pavilion (tumkur). We had our last circle time and shared our ups and downs in the journey and left, feeling very happy and satisfied because we had done so many things and learnt things we never expected to and passed each of it in flying colours. We had the maximum fun in those 3 days though things were difficult to look at in the first. Later it was good to try. We were all happy to be involved in such a superb activity. We all left with big smiles on our faces and new potential to look at things in a different manner.

trekking










