First arrivals at field base

Today we have our much anticipated first venturer arrivals. Durga, Subash, Tejaswini, Rohith, Vijay, Harsha, Madhavi, Shiva, Thayal, Vikas and Iman all arrived this morning from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The new arrivals have created a real buzz at field base, we’ve started the day with some games to all get to know each other and we’ll all be having lunch together before a team sets off for Bangalore to pick up the rest of the venturers.

Our first venturers arrive and settle in to a game of volley ball with the PMs.The rest of the venturers will be landing in Bangalore in the early hours of tomorrow morning and will be arriving at field base about lunch time. We are all really excited about meeting all the venturers, everyone feels like this is the real beginning of expedition and I’m sure field base is going to be extremely lively over the next week. Bring it on!

In other news yesterday all the PMs and field base staff went out rafting. The group was split in to two groups the elephants and the tigers.

Above: the tigers building their raft.

Above: Pretty in pink our expert raft builder

After excellent demos by our Country Director, Mark, on how to build rafts the race commenced. It was neck and neck for all of about one minute, the elephants stampeded ahead whilst the tigers strumbled at the first hurdle – getting in to the water. Unfortunately for the tigers getting this proved slightly troublesome with them getting stuck in the weeds. After a bit of a heave they were off too and the race was on…apart from the fact that the elephants had already practically finished.

Above: the elephants had already cleared their raft and the tigers weren't even in sight.

So with a few collisions with various greenery and the tigers managing to do a u-turn unintentionally the race finished with the elephants in first position and the tigers coming second (not last!).

Above: the tigers finish - note the absence of Kate who was already on the bank after a quick swim.

The tigers had a spectacular finish with Kate demonstrating how not to throw a throw rope and ending up throwing herself in to the water instead.

After a quick dismantle of the rafts...

It was time for a quick swim before home time.
So now off we go to Bangalore to pick up the troops, there will be a new post on Saturday once they have arrived at field base.