WORLD EXCLUSIVE: First pictures from Tiger Island (Kanive Mallapanna)

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(Above: the new Alpha 3 site at Kanive Mallapanna)

Welcome to your first world-exclusive peek into the life at Kanive Mallapanna in the remote depths of the Indian forest!

The gang at Alpha 3 are working to build a much-needed anti-poaching camp which will help Karnataka Forest Department officials to stem theft of wood and animal products from this fragile ecological environment.

Sound important? It certainly is, but you'll be happy to know in true style our Raleigh gang have not lost their sense of fun.

The new Alpha 3 site has been dubbed "Tiger Island." The site is surrounded by a moat-like Elephant-proof trench upon which the Venturers are both living and working. The trench is impossible to leap so they do feel like they're on a tiny island in the middle of Bandipur National Park.

On the long jeep-journey to the site, the group discovered that all things certainly do come in threes: they spotted three groups of Indian elephants, and when they stopped the jeep for a closer look, quickly discovered a nearby tree was home to three snakes!

They've set up an impressive camp of bamboo in the old anti-poaching camp which has been dubbed the "servants quarters" and comes complete with a rice-bag buffet with appropriate qutoes from well-known rice-bag lunchers (well, maybe), check it out below!

The challenge to build an entire anti-poaching camp in one phase is a big ask and the team are already working very hard with a view to meeting the deadline at the end of phase in preparation for what promises to be a spectaular inauguration ceremony.

Alpha 3 was also the temporary home to a special guest from London, Raleigh's head of fundraising Teresa Fitzgerald.

Teresa joined the Raleigh India family for what we considered a far-too short length of time, and is now heading back to spread the word of India's success to everyone in the UK.

"The camp site at Alpha 3 was just amazing, the group worked like trojans to get it up and ready in the first couple of days, it was such a privilege to be able to spend time with them," she said.

(Below: Teresa pictured with Tiger Island - I mean, Alpha 3 - project manager Andrew Cox.)

Country Programme Manager Mark Ashby also joined the Alpha 3 team for a morning, and checked out the amount of wild lantana growing around the camp.

Lantana is a noxious weed in much of the Australian and Asian regions and Raleigh is investigating potential future projects to help eradicate the dense, prickly and poisonous bush from parts of remote India.

(Mark Ashby checking out the prolific spread of lantana around the Tiger Island campsite)

The loop vehicle will be heading back out to Alpha 3 this phase so there will be more stories from the Tiger Island troops before the end.

In the meantime, here's two cool things:

The first is a picture of our five new explorers! I forgot to post it the other day, so here is Alex, Em, Anuta, Zhara and Gavin at Fieldbase shortly before deployment:

And secondly, I promised a special guest blogger and as a "Grand Blog Master" (thanks to the de Wilton olds for that nickname) I do try to deliver!

Holly Gottlieb was on the trekking phase for phase 2. She has since returned and joined "Team Toilet" at Kalainhnahalla but took time out during changeover to write up her experience on the 200km hike in Kerala.

(Above: Holly and the trekking group during Phase 2)

Read on!

Not-so-glorious mud: A tale from Kerala

For most of us the highlight of the trek was without doubt the summit day where we climbed the Missapuli Mala peak which the trek is named after. We climbed for hours and hours only to find clouds swarming around us when we reached the top. Nevertheless, ecstatic doesn’t really equate to how we felt when we got there. Coming down the mountain we adopted an alternative way of moving by sliding down the rocks and grass on our arses, it was a much more effective way of coming down!

Needless to say that there was quite a lot of sewing to do that evening, particularly in Rosanna’s case where she had to resort to gaffer tape in an attempt to patch up the almighty tear in the crotch of her shorts. We then visited the world’s highest tea factory where we across a guy who coincidentally lived on the same street as Angel, all the way back in barking. It was only on the jeep ride down from the tea factory that the sun eventually came out and we were able to appreciate the incredible news.

Being Zoe’s birthday, we celebrated that evening with plum cake and braced ourselves for the approaching storm.

Later on that evening, Jo and I woke up to find an inch of water INSIDE our tent and a waterfall had started on Zoe’s head. This failed to wake her up and it was only our cries of desperation which eventually woke her. After assessing the predicament, Zoe said, and I quote: “We are leaving. EVACUATE!”

Semi-dressed and clutching our sleeping bags and mats for dear life, we ran to seek shelter in a workman’s slop, where we had left our rucksacks only to find them floating in a foot of water. We managed to find a square metre still semi-dry and the three of us spent the night huddled together bracing against the hurricane-force winds and rain, praying the water didn’t creep any closer. It has certainly been my most memorable evening of expedition!
After the particularly tough day, our first rest day was spend lounging about a lake with geese, some of the group went and bought chickens from the local town and the massacre that followed was enough to scar even nature-boy Tom M, for life.

Another very memorable occasion occurred when we were trying to cross a dried up lake. Had the first group been right in their prediction that we would not see s drop of rain, this would have been a very easy task. However considering that we saw torrential rain every night, an easy task it was not.

We spent a good couple of hours trying to negotiate a way across and our decision to just “go for it” seriously backfired when some of us – me included – fell in, up to our waists, in pure sludgy mud.

A whole pile-up started when Rosanna got stuck and our guide Arun jumped in to save the damsel in distress. In classic comedy mode, Angel then launched herself in to save Arun,. Meanwhile the rest of us – not wanting to miss the opportunity – just stood by and took photographs.

For me, the most challenging part of the trek was the last few days which were particularly tough on the feet but I am so grateful to the rest of the group who pulled together and got me through it. Our last trekking day was pretty spectacular when the heavens opened minutes after we reached our campsite. The trek is designed to be tough and it certainly wasn’t a walk in the park but the sense of achievement and satisfaction I felt on completion made all the difficult times completely worthwhile.

(Below: Hobby, Sumith, Seb, Felicity and Angel at Vagamon campsite)