Navigation and Hiking fun

These last couple of weeks have been really good. I havent had any camps with school kids. Warriuka have been busy giving us lots of preparation work for hikes coming up.
Last week we went to Kattaning Primary school to run a day with the yr 6 and 7s doing team building games and adventure courses. That went really well. We had to travel up the night before and stay in a conference centre near by. It was quite scary driving at night down in the south of perth because it is very remote and none of the highways are lit up. There are alot of accidents with kangaroos and cars going too fast (apparently if your going too fast your car can often come off worse). I have been taught also if you see one run across right in front of you and you kill it. You must stop to make sure i is dead. If it isn't you have to run it over again, then drag it to the side of the road! ewwwwww...
Anyway, it was a very long drive - 4 hours in total- but we could share that out between 4 of us.

We have also done a Navigation training day with the Warriuka team ( me Brian- the interns, Anna and Keith- the field workers and Ross- camp coordinator). I had done so navigation before on camp but always with another leader. This time we had to do it our selves and find these points marked out on a map. Really helpful day.

I just got back from a big hike me emily and brian went on. It definitely felt very strange going off in the bush just us three... I feel like we have come such a long way tho and was very prepared and ready for any dangers coming our way.
The hike was so beautiful... we parked the car in hills forest car park just outside kalamunda and hiked along the bibbulm track east. It was very up and down hill and the weather was very changey... one min bright sunshine... other pouring it with rain... not great hiking weather because we had to keep stopping - lugging our massive pack off and taking layers off/ waterproofing up!
My purple rucksack is SO AMAZING and such a luxury to hike with. Its really good because the tighter you have it around the waist the less weight you can have on your shoulders, then when your waist gets tired and sore you can off load the weight from your hips to your shoulders... ect. BRILLIANT! But my hips are soo sore because our packs were so so so heavy. We were all carrying about four or five litres and all our food supplies/ sleeping stuff.
The first day we must of trekked about 11 KM because we didnt start the hike till 11 am because we got a little lost in the car on the way. We slept at a hut called 'Helena hut' which is literally a wooden built open shelter with 4 double bunk beds and a table. There was an awesome toilet tho... bear in mind this was a long drop and so very smelly it was this tiny little hut at the top of the hill when you opened the door and sat and did you business you could have a great view!
We set up a tent that night in the entrance to the hut so being protected by the wind and also all the hundreds of bugs crawling into the wooden beds! We slept that night from about half eight to 7 am the next morning... well needed sleep for sure. It was a cold night tho, good job i borrowed my friends winter sleeping bag.
The next morning we woke up and opened our tent to this spectacular view of the mountains almost covered completely in myst and low cloud.
We packed up our stuff and hiked around 15 KM back to where we parked the car. It was again a really beautiful walk, up and down hill. Navigation this time was harder because we were not always on the Bibblum Track because we wanted to go a different way. I saw a couple of kangaroos about 11 am hopping across the track we were on! But they are very shy animals so bounced off pretty quickly. There were some really beautiful birds i saw too... look like a cross between vultures and parrots! And i am sure I heard some animals outside our tent in the night... either wombats, possums or kangaroos.
It felt so good seeing the gate which we knew was the end and getting closer. I feel like i could of done more which is really good practice for the hike me and brian have in june (2 weeks) for 5 days bush bashing through thick track.

Anyway hope everything is well in England - not long till i am home!
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