Camp!

This weekend half of the grade 12 students packed their bags and headed over to Poondi, Kodai's camping ground. The weekend was chock full of frisbee, volleyball, archery, rafting, hiking and of course campfires! The food was great, a few chef's from the school came down with us and cooked our meals over an open fire.

We hiked up far into the mountain in search for a waterfall. Our trek was unsuccessful in that sense, but we made it fun by playing games and talking, not to mention the killer view we had at the end, that in itself was a nice reward. The campsite was mostly populated with the invasive, exotic species of pine and eucalyptus, and the mountain side had mostly tannin rich acacia trees with a bright orange bark. As usual the hike back down seemed half as long as the hike up! We had some good laughs when a few of us got ankle deep in mud in the deceiving valley that was just at the base of the mountain.

We also had the opportunity of going on late night hikes and seeing (or as much as we could!) the landscape in a different perspective. Of course there was the occasional scream, but it was all in good fun!

For most of the day Saturday I decided to take up archery, and to my surprise I really enjoyed it! Hopefully when I return home I can pick up a new hobby!

Both Friday night and Saturday night we had a bonfire complete with marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers for a campfire classic, smores. On Saturday we also had "dough boys", which is pretty much dough on a stick roasted over the fire, and then when they've finished you can eat them with honey, butter, jam or peanut butter. They weren't as bad as i was expecting them to be!

The whole time while at camp you could look out past the lake and see women in incredibly colourful sarees carrying freshly cut logs from the mountain sides back to their homes, all barefoot. That seems to be a very popular footwear choice in India.

Overall it was a nice weekend, both relaxing and invigorating :)