The Venturers return from Trek Training

Tuesday morning was an early start as the Hotel groups each embarked on their 21km treks. The route took them from Fieldbase down through local villages, past luscious green Paddy fields and over the River Kabini.

The groups did fantastically well, especially considering their jet lag, and all completed the trek in full. The walk gave the groups a really good opportunity to get to know each other better, with some groups even engaging in motivational sing-a-longs to get them through. Thankfully the routes are mainly along uninhabited rural tracks!

By early afternoon the groups had reached their destination, Ude's Chicken Farm, where they set up camp for the next two nights. Their first challenge came in the shape of a short but sharp rain downfall that tested their tent assembling skills. Unfortunately some didn’t quite pass and their tents were soaked, so for some groups the first night was spent in disused chicken coops – stinky but dry!

Wednesday morning, after tucking into the standard Raleigh breakfast of porridge, the group headed to a local riverside Temple for First Aid training, swim test, Comms training and Indian culture discussions.

Then it was back to the campsite in the afternoon where the groups prepared from scratch their dinner of chicken curry ... and when I say from scratch, I mean from scratch!

For most of the Venturers, in everyday life, they are unattached to the reality of where meat comes from and how it gets to the dinner plate. In India, when a family wants to eat chicken, they will buy a live one from their local shop and prepare it themselves. So to provide the Venturers with greater appreciation and respect of eating meat they were shown the traditional Indian way.

Anna, Country Program Manager, gave a demonstration of how to humanely kill a chicken and then Manju, one of the Raleigh drivers, showed the group how to skin and butcher the chicken. The Hotel groups were not expected to kill a chicken themselves but were each given a whole chicken to skin and prepare for their dinner.

After another night at the Chicken Farm (thankfully in dried out tents) the Hotel groups returned to Fieldbase yesterday morning; smelly, dirty and tired but ultimately with a better insight into Project Phase life and full of excitement of the weeks ahead. The afternoon was spent in Mysore where they munched on Pizza, shopped for last minute essentials and caught up on their email correspondence.

Now it's time for allocations when the Venturers will find out where they're heading on Phase One. Check back later when all will be revealed ...


Raleigh India 10k
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