The boys (and girls) are back in town...

Following on from this morning's rather short post, here are more details on what’s been going on in the expedition for the last few days, and crikey, they’ve been busy!

Firstly, I’m happy to announce that we have eight new venturers that have flown over to India to join us from all different parts of the UK. Polly picked them all up from Bangalore very early on Saturday morning and after being shown around field base, they were straight into the jetlagged induction sessions.

Welcome to our new explorers.
L-R - Sheena, Georgia, Chloe, Karen, George, David, Lisa, Bryony.

Today saw all the teams arrive back at field base and it’s been so great to see everyone again and welcome them back home, if only for a few days.

Echo 3 returning.

Echo 4.

Meeting up with old friends.

Tango 5's tent cleaning session.

They've cleaned their kit (and themselves hopefully!), caught up with old friends, compared dirty nails and tans and have now headed into the local city of Mysore for the afternoon before coming back for dinner and a few celebrations tonight where a quick skit depicting their last three weeks was in order, all in fancy dress of course!

Charlie 1 going all Jeremy Kyle on us.

Charlie 2 tell us their fairy tale.

Echo 3 sing us an amazing song about 'stare boy'.

Echo 4 taking a cat nap.

Tango 5 share their amazing banana song, love it!

Tango 6 also tell their tale through songs.

Now that the guys are all back we’ll be having a proper catch up with all the teams and looking at all their photos to see which ones are suitable for publishing on here! So while we filter through ALL of everyone’s photos (we could be here for a while) here’s a very brief update on how some of the teams plus some more photos of our loop visit to see Charlie 1 and Tango 6

Echo 3

Eleri popped over to see the guys in Huskurhadi for a few hours just as they were downing their tools from the morning’s work. The weather here in India is getting very humid as the temperatures rise so both the Environmental projects have had a tough job of digging in the heat but judging by their faces today, they’ve loved it! They’ve been back up to the local school a few times, and have also been working with the local villagers in the afternoons.

Echo 4

Polly joined the team in Basava Pura for an afternoon to catch up on how they’d been getting on. The digging was going well and the fences were up which is great so they were on to paining the fence poles.  They’ve also continued to spruce up their camp and give sessions at the local school which has been great fun. 500m of trenches

Charlie 2

Becca headed out to catch up with the team in BD Munti at the end of last week to see how they were getting on in the closing stages of their phase. They’ve managed to get all the 15 toilets built at the individual houses which is fantastic, and they were in the middle of painting them when Becca arrived.  They were all then looking forward to the opening ceremony that the village was planning to celebrate the team’s hard work, nice one guys!

While all that was going on, Kathryn, Una and I were out for four days to catch up with Charlie 1 and Tango 6 neither of which we’d seen since the very start of the phase so we were looking forward to seeing how they’d been getting on for the last two and a half weeks, which is a long time on expedition.

Charlie 1

After a quick overnight trip to see Vijay our project partner at CTRD again, it was time to head over to Vellary, just within the borders of Tamil Nadu, to catch up with Eeva, Stuart and the gang in their beautiful camp to see how the building work was taking shape. They were all having an amazing time and making the most of the beautiful surroundings by doing early morning runs into the tea plantations and playing the local village football team each night down at the nearby field in the evenings. And in between these games, they’re building boi-gas units and a house from 9am – 5pm each day so they’re working and playing pretty hard.


It’s clear to see they've become very close with the families they’re working alongside and it was lovely to see the young children who had once shied away from the team now running up to them and asking to play. We were keen to meet all the animals they’d named in their last update and did get to meet Jeremy the goat and Zachery the very cute puppy but alas the prawns weren't  at home when we popped by, shame.

They gave us a tour of the camp and proudly showed us what they’d been building which was pretty impressive for the time they've been there.

Dharmendra and Fieke show us the wall of the biogas cow shed they've built and added their names to.

The cow shed the team have built which now just needs a roof.

Back row L-R - Stuart (PM), Kannan, Dharmendra, Scott
Middle row L - R - Rachel, Clare, Ben, Eeva (PM), Ed, Danielle
Front row L - R - Sam, Laura, Philip, Fieke

They've installed a bio-gas unit which involves building a cow shed as well as digging a huge hole in the ground behind it and building the bio-gas dome within the hole. It was great to see that the village cockerel that has been keeping them awake at night even got in on the building action as his foot prints were clear to see in the cement slabs they’d prepared.

They've also been building a house for one of the village families as theirs was washed away in monsoons some time ago and they haven’t yet been able to afford to build a new one. So with some help from Raleigh, they’ve been helping the team to build their new house which was also coming along nicely.

Showing round the house they've been working on.
L-R - Kannan, Ben, Fieke, Ed, Stuart (PM), Danielle, Phil and Dharmendra.

As we left them they were all set to get painting on the cow sheds and continue working on the house, in preparation for a village party and opening ceremony yesterday so we’re keen to hear how that all went and see the all important photos! Everyone was really enjoying living in Vellary and working with the villagers and were going to be very sad to leave, especially when we said they couldn't bring the prawns back with them.

After a lovely lunch provided by the family they’re camping with, we set off on a three hour trip to Kerala to catch up with one of our trekking groups, Tango 6, at their camp near the Chembra peak which they had climbed that afternoon (2100m) following a night trek, serious stuff huh!

Tango 6

After a very bumpy drive through the tea plantations we caught up with them at the forestry watchtower that was the camp for the night. As they’d been up since 2am that morning we expected to be greeted by some very tired trekkers, however the thought of messages from home, as well as chocolate and crisps that we had brought for them, definitely had them in high spirits as the sun set spectacularly over the surrounding hills. After catching up on all the gossip over dinner, including a very long joke from Rob, and a few games it was time for everyone to bed down for the night in the open air roof of the watchtower under that night’s full moon.

View from the watchtower

Sarah writing up her diary with the best view possible.

So after a reasonably timed wakeup call of 6am it was time to head out for a day’s trek with the guys back through the tea plantation and forests and up to the following night’s camp on the side of the Ellembileri hills surrounded by two further peaks and forests below.

Looking back over the team plantations to the watchtower we'd just come from.

Tango 6 have certainly worked out how to trek in style, with people singing all the way to camp (S Club 7 being my personal favourite – what harmonies!), various games to choose from (20 questions to guess the right celebrity or the ‘Friends quiz’) and darn quick walking pace which meant we were at camp before lunch. So it was bags down and tents up before tucking into the much loved combo of tinned cheese, crackers and peanut butter. After lunch and some tent cleaning in the scorching heat, it was off down the very steep hill to the nearby river too cool down and get a much needed wash.

Sarah, Ameze and Clare enjoying the freezing cold water.

Maddy and Sam then knocked the team up a lovely dinner of pasta before they were all sat round the campfire to talk about how far they've come as a team over the last 18 days. As it was their penultimate night together, they were so proud of how hard they’d worked together to get to the top of so many mountains as a group and it was clear that the physical and mental struggles that trekking brings has clearly brought them very close as a team.

After a quick trip to possibly the steepest short drop toilet in the history of trekking, it was time for bed to prepare for their last day of this phase which started with the best possible wakeup call I’ve ever experienced. Despite it being dark, cold and 5:15am everyone woke up so cheery as Ameze played the ukulele and sang to announce that the porridge was ready, soon everyone was singing back from their tents as backing singers, brilliant! 

Packing up to leave camp.

Jen, Jonny, Susan (PM), Alex and Clare.

We said cheerio to the group after a 2km trek back down the very steep hill to where they would pick up the mountain bikes they’d be riding that day to cover off the last 50km of the trek. Once the fetching cycling shorts, padded saddles and helmets were in place, it was time to wish Tango 6 farewell on the last stretch of their journey. I’d put money on the fact they sang and laughed all the way to their last camp fire of the phase.

Tango 6 on two wheels.
L - R - Sarah, Clare, Jess, Thatte, Susan (PM), Stuart (PM), Rob, Binika, Phil, Sam, Simone, Maddy, Ameze, Alex and Jonny

Susan's bum before it was stung by a bee during the bike ride.

We then headed back to field base to get cleaned up, meet the new venturers that had arrived and prepare for everyone returning today. 

We're also saying a sad 'So long' to two of our venturers who were only able to stay with us for the first phase, so Dharmendra (Charlie 1) and Sam (Tango 6) will both be leaving us after changeover to head off on their next adventure. Both are great guys and will be missed, good luck guys, we hope you had a blast!

We’ll be back on Wednesday with photos and news of the end of Phase 1 as well as details of this changeover and the all important project allocations for Phase 2!

Oh, one final thing, I have LOTS and LOTS of blog messages from the guys to you lot back home so I’ll get these typed up and on here as soon as I can over the next few days.