So we had our first school group for 2010. What a breeze, only 11 kids and they were here for geo/bio/eco studies as there were a few from each subject in the group. The only fun activity they did was surfing which they LOVED and the rest was school work. Good times for sure.
While the group was in Dion and Afa headed into the rain forest to find us a Duke of Ed hike for groups which we have in March. They headed to a National Park about 2hours away from here. They Got dropped off at a random village and then had to get a motorbike all the way into the park. From there they walked for 8kms up a road till they found some life. They camped the night under the restaurant awning before catching another motorbike for 3hours into the end of the national park.This is where they would try and exit the park by following a river which looked good on Google Earth!! Haha this is not the best advice for anyone! The Chinese are very quick at building new things and also since there are no topo maps of the country everything is super hard! So the nice river we thought looked good was damed and backed up so no flow or much water. Sad to see.
The boys managed to walk out a little before being picked up by some power line workers who were worried about their safety. They were told by them how the local kids would put road blocks up to stop your car before beating you, and then demanding money!!! Crazy I say but it all worked out in the end! (meant they didn't have to walk the extra 40kms through all the villages!)
So they stayed the night in a hotel and caught the bus back the next day. This is clearly not a good place to take school kids! So now we need to head back in there and find another walking track which goes through the park and hopefully it will be all hunky dory.
So yeah, wow, January has gone just like that.
