Adventures through the Cederberg

[Smiley73]

Some Aside Notes:

 

The ‘epic’ Epic:

 

Yes I know it’s tempting to call the Epic (the hike) epic (the adjective) but don’t, but don’t, please, I’ve had enough of this senseless pun. Yeah, sure it’s pretty cool the first couple of times when you say, “The abseiling was ‘epic’”, or “’epic’ fail” or “this view is ‘epic’”, but after 16 days of this its not funny anymore.*

 

*That was written in heavy sarcasm, use epic as an adjective whenever you want; just don’t expect me to laugh

 

Epic Standards:

 

I’m writing about this because even now, weeks after the Epic has concluded, I still think about this, and reference back to it nearly every day. The Epic standard basically just means that while on epic your standards dropped, usually this was for personal hygiene, especially like brushing your teeth or making sure your hands are clean, or all the other sorts of civilised things you do. When I was out on Epic you get to a point where “You just don’t care”. You just don’t care if you brush your teeth or if you hands are dirty. By the end of my first hike the dirt was so ingrained in my hands it took three days of water activities to get most of it out, and even then, there was still some left ingrained in the ridges of my palms. I have made a note that even though my hands were as dirty as they were I did not get sick which sort of makes me doubtful of whether you actually need to get disinfectant type soaps to use at home. Maybe my body is just awesome at fighting infection...

 

Singing:

 

Now apparently no group before ever got into singing that much but for some reason Tafelberg Red (the other Tafelberg group) was able to break into acapella renditions of songs nearly at will, probably because their group had Peter Anguria who is probably the best singer our school has at the moment, he actually, recorded a rap song at our school’s soundhouse but it doesn’t really show off his abilities, but I’ll find a way to link it if you want a listen anyway.

 

That’s all for now but I’m planning to at least start writing the next journal entry today.

 

 

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

... i didn't mean it as a pun. never put together the epic thing before this post.

 

i was tired of awesome.

 

its hard for me to express intense emotions at a PG13 level.

 

so just fill in your own blanks :)

[mmeeshal]

I have made a note that even though my hands were as dirty as they were I did not get sick which sort of makes me doubtful of whether you actually need to get disinfectant type soaps to use at home. Maybe my body is just awesome at fighting infection...

That reminded me of this, actually....

 

No Soap, No Stink!

 

It's a fascinating read.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

antibiotic soap is bad. soap soap is good.

[Smiley73]

hmm the article was interesting, in the comments I read that when people do this the results tend to vary from person to person. While normally going about my business on epic (not hiking) I didn't smell at all and even while hiking with sweat covering my back I only really noticed that I smelled bad if I put my nose right into my armpit, of course there would be residual stink in my clothes left over even if I did wash/swim, because I never did get the chance to use washing powder on it.

 

Guy's feet stank though, they stank bad. Definitely the worst foot smell I've ever come across.

[Smiley73]

Day 7:

 

(By the way, this is the 28^th of November)

 

Today started out, really early, because Court wanted us to move out early enough that the other group wouldn’t catch up with us, I don’t know maybe we would obstruct their way or annoy people who wanted to go the other way, or maybe he was in a contest, but we were up and going at 6AM. No we were closing in on Algeria, which is where we were in the first place on the first day before we were bussed of to Sanddrif.

 

Soon after our walk started we went down a massive zig-zag path, which, when you look from Algeria is on the side of a Massive cleft in a mountain. Also if you look at it from a distance away you can see some intense, which is uncommon in the Cederberg. That greenery was cause by a river (and waterfall) that we were heading to. But first we had to navigate the seemingly endless zig-zags, we were making progress down if you looked for it, most of the way down though, we finished up 99 bottles of beer on the wall, yes we finished it, finished it all.

 

We did stop when we got to a sign that said “waterval”, which is a waterfall in Afrikaans. The path split here, one going straight on and the other continuing to zig-zag down. We dropped our packs and went straight ahead to this waterfall. Now I might have said before how nice the water is in the Cederberg, but I’m not joking when I say that was THE GREASTEST WATERFALL EVAR because not only did it look pretty damn cool, it had the best water I’ve ever tasted, it was cold and clean and just generally great, I mean if I go to the Cederberg (and I sorta do) I want to make a stop there.

 

Once we had had our break we kept on heading down into Algeria. It was weird getting back and seeing cars and benches AND TOILETS. Yeah the toilets got screwed over big time. Before we broke up and mingled with the other groups at Algeria, Mr. Court got us gathered around a bench and said how much he enjoyed taking us and then made known what I had heard earlier in the hike. The group that hike our route in the solo hike has a tradition stemming from 7 years ago (at that point the Adventure Course was in place not the Epic) would walk into Sanddrif in their jocks. Yes in their jocks. Well, this was going to be interesting...

 

I spent some time trying to clean up my hands but got nowhere so I gave up and joined my group, Tafelberg Red and a another group at a set of tables waiting. Tafelberg was set to go to Waterbase next and we were going to cycle there which I was slightly worried about, seeing as I hadn’t cycled for about 4 or 5 years, I cycled on a stationary bike when I go to gym so there would be nothing wrong with my muscles but I doubted my balance.

 

When we were sitting at tables just talking while we waited I got some hot chocolate going and managed to scrounge (get from other people) some powdered milk and sugar to add in which made the hot chocolate quite orgasmic. The word going around was that one boy got busted for weed (cannabis, marijuana whatever you call it), it was already going around one the first day after the bus trip that he had. The mass consensus of the boys was that he was being pretty frikkin’ dumb.

 

There was a bus that came through that was carrying some boys that we couldn’t speak to. Eventually we did get called together and the short version is that Mr Robertson (teacher in charge of Epic) told us that people had been caught with cannabis and with cigarettes and they were going to be punished.

 

Well eventually the bikes arrived and were getting ready and we pack our bags inside a truck, which is where I made my first mistake, I forgot my cycling gloves inside my back. By the time I realised there was nothing I could do about it. I went cycling around a little and though my biking ability was far from amazing I wasn’t falling over which was a good sign.

 

We did eventually get off and I mostly walked up the hill to the road above Algeria. The road was paved with bricks for a couple hundred meters and then turned to dirt road filled with little stones. Unfortunately I never cycled on anything worse than tar. I bailed hard after a downhill section. I was holding down my back brake and I was still not slowing down so I started pulling down the front which was probably the fatal move and I fell to the right. I guess I luckily fell to the right and got into the foetal position before I hit the ground and rolled, which meant I didn’t take the full brunt of the impact. The fall banged me up a little bit and my head was ringing a little bit. I was already pretty near the back but I couple people stopped, including Guy who was going with me. I just sat for a little bit, drank some water, waited some of the shock out and then got back up. About 50 meters later after another downhill I bailed again, this time on a bridge across a river. Again I was going faster than I was comfortable and Guy was in front of me and I didn’t want to crash into him so I pulled my brakes and went forward this time and my hands took a lot of the force this time.

 

I let out a sort of groan thing as I was lying on the ground; I was aching all around, but nothing really bad so I sat while Guy rushed up to me. There was no way I was going on by myself now, mostly because my hands were pretty messed up, especially my left hand which had a pretty large coin-sized cut in it. Well, not exactly a cut, the skin was torn mostly off from that part of my palm but was still hanging on, it wasn’t really bleeding, but only because it was clogged up with dust and bit of road.

 

I told Guy to ride on and tell the teacher in charge that I’d fallen and all. I sorta just sat down on a little pillar on the edge of the bridge and waited the shock off. Nearby there was a wooden house on the hill, which was uninhabited, there was a bathroom though so I tried to wash my hand, which didn’t get very far. Also by this house was a little shady spot under a tin roof where I sat down with my bike. Then I saw the truck go past that had the bike rack on the back, and I did nothing, I guess they didn’t see me. My mind sort of went, “Should I have stopped them? Yeah probably, Oh well, nothing I can change now”. Luckily though another bakkie (South African word for a truck that I’ll use from now on because I find it comes more naturally) came past, this one filled with our bags. These guys did see me and stopped and I got a ride with them till about the halfway point of the cycle, just after a big hill.

 

I had quite a time with these guys, they were messing around telling bad puns, and altogether it was a nice way to spend time after my two crashes. They also made a guy fall of his bicycle by hooting at him as they drove by. I actually learnt quite a bit about the Cederberg and especially about Jannie Niewoudt, a farmer who owns much of the Cederberg’s land. Too much for me to write now but if you want the story then just reply saying so.

 

At the halfway point we stopped for bar-ones (a chocolate bar) and oreos and refilled up with water. I got my bike and helmet out from the back of the bakkie, because I was planning to at least attempt to ride a bit once my hand got a little attention. It did eventually when the support vehicle got there (the bakkie with the bike rack attached to the back). They couldn’t really do much to clean it without running water, so they put on some disinfectant and put on some bandaging.

 

It was actually very lucky that I missed the support vehicle because if they had stopped I would have had to keep on going once I got some first-aid. The way things turned out, I got a ride till the shock ran out of me and I had recovered a little bit. I did continue downhill towards the Clanwilliam dam which you could see from the hill. We would be going all the way around though. So that’s what I did going slowly, but inexorably towards the Waterbase. Before I set off I was told not to look at my wheel, because it had a wobble as it turned, i.e. the wheel wasn’t straight. One guy from the support vehicle noticed and said about the same thing. It probably came from my two crashes, apparently I nearly wrote off the bike. So, yeah, I’m tougher than a mountain bike.

 

I did pass people as I went along, people who had tyres burst usually. I did eventually make it to Waterbase, looking like death. Some of the teachers were fretting over, something about blood on my face I think (the blood, which was not plentiful probably came from the first crash, where my glasses got pushed into my forehead and must have cut open the skin, my glasses on the other, did not get a scratch). I put my bike down with all the others, got a sandwich and juice and felt better after eating. Then I went down to the house where the camp administrators were to get some proper seeing to my hand. I tried to wash it when they told me but I got very little in the way of progress. So I came back with what I had done. My hand got disinfectants and mercurochrome/monkey blood which basically just helps your blood clot.

 

With that done we had a short intro to life saving if someone was drowning. Now Waterbase is a great place and one of the things you do there is to ski. I though, like a lot of the people in the two groups, have never skied before in my life. So we had a quick little session with two of the teachers at our school who were driving the boat/coaching us and then we got into the water. I didn’t get anywhere near to skiing, the grip thing just kept coming out of my hands when the boat was coming up to speed, maybe because of my hand being torn open. Not to worry though there is tomorrow, and then the day after that to get this all done.

 

At the end of that day, and every day at Waterbase we ended with Tribal Council, which consisted of highs and lows for all the boys and staff as well as a ‘dummy of the day’. For the boys the lows were mostly to do with the cycle and the highs were about the vibe or waterskiing. The teachers’ lows were probably aimed at making us feel bad, but I they were legitimate reason to be low points, one of them was about the ‘hungry box’, which was a box (which I never visited) filled with fruits and bread and jam and peanut butter and all sorts of snack-y things, that was left in a state, which I can mostly attribute to the Red group, who in most cases, probably because of the mob-ish mentality and the people in the group, were pretty uncivilised. I’ll probably get a post just about them later.

 

Then we had a night-time activity we had a scavenger hunt-type thing, that didn’t turn out too well, we had to think of easy to get the, stuff, not actually find it, the riddles were interesting though. That night, like every night at Waterbase, ended off with hot chocolate.

 

 

[Smiley73]

Day 8:

 

The sleeping accommodations for boys are basically to big tents per group, but some guys opted to sleep outside because of the heat, just by the way. Last night I was hurting pretty bad from all my cuts and bruises especially on my right elbow. My next hike is in 5 or so days so it will be good to at least partially recover before hitting the road again.

 

We collected breakfast from the staff huts and set about getting ready for the day that would start with a little briefing just to let everyone know what we were doing. Our day started off with raft-building (which you seem to do every camp) and then water activities in the afternoon.

 

Raft building was okay, I missed the knots lesson everyone got the day before while I attempted to learn how to water-ski, but they did do a refresher. That turned out fine because most of the work was actually done by Guy and Josh with the rest of us just pitching in where help was needed. Essentially the raft was four 200+ litre plastic tanks put into a square-ish frame with two checkerboard flooring pieces on top. There was a space between the checkerboards because they didn’t fit our raft exactly. The plan is that the Red team would build the raft during their afternoon. Then tomorrow we take them to the other side of the lake and race them across. The only prize is pride though.

 

When we had that done, we lazed around till the activities got started up. I started off canoeing which Guy, which went well, besides the fact that we capsized in the middle of the lake, trying to race back for bar-ones, oh well. Next I went waterskiing, this time with my skis connected together and one of the teachers helping to put my legs right, but still no luck. Apparently no one has ever before left Waterbase without learning to ski, so I was getting up, through hell or high water. The last activity was sailing, which I had never done before. This type of sailing was on one-man boats and was very confusing to a newbie outsider, but that didn’t stop it from being fun. Basically we got a little lesson just going between two people, but I can’t begin to explain how complicated it gets eventually. You’ve got main sails, main sheets (the cord you control to pull the main sail in or to let it out). Pulling to main sheet makes you go faster, letting it go makes the sail flap around more and direct less energy, making you go slower. Then there’s a tiller attached to a rudder that makes you turn and on top of that is there is the jib sail/small flappy thing (depending on how panicked you are). What you must understand it that everything can get stuck with everything else, and if it is, you capsize, I didn’t capsize too much but yeah I did. Also I apparently once messed everything up just right and just badly enough that I made a miracle recovery, instead of capsizing like the n00b I am. All I know about that is I was going in circles a lot and after I got used to the fact I did what I needed to do to stop going in circles, I’m not sure how I did that right though. All it took for sailing to be fun was to revel in the fact that I have no idea what the hell is going on and that ten seconds from now, I’m probably gonna be in the water.

 

Tribal council tonight was much more varied than last night. Most of the highs were about skiing or winning bar-ones in races and the lows were about capsizing or food (which was tricky to cook that night, even I got a thoroughly burnt pizza, but come on guys, suck it up!). What was really cool was that Peter, the boss-man (the guy who seemed to be in charge around here), chose me as a highlight? Sound weird? Maybe, basically he just said it was really cool to see me keep trying to ski even though my hand was torn up.

 

That does remind me to say that that afternoon after my second attempt at skiing, The teacher who got my legs in the right position, asked me to show here my hand, which she couldn’t see because I finally got into my head that gloves are important. Unfortunately, my hand still looked pretty bad from the outside, especially because of the monkey blood which is bright red. I suspect it that she thought the monkey blood was real blood, or maybe it was just the size of it, but she sent me straight off to get it disinfected/cleaned up (which was happening in the background every morning and afternoon).

 

That comment made me pretty chuffed with myself. Also came news from the outside, well not the outside, exactly but about the Epic that we would not know about. One boy, Herman, fell off the abseil about 15 meters and apparently broke his leg, he was airlifted to hospital in a helicopter. The instructor came off with second degree burns from trying to manually stop the guy from falling by holding the rope when and he was wearing gloves to begin with (that means the rope burned through the gloves and then went into his palms). Much discussion on this happened over the days, so I’ll add details as they came to us, but for now, the guy has a broken leg and is in hospital after falling 15 meters.

 

That night’s activity was wool tag, which for all intents and purposes is full contact capture-the-flag. Blood was spilled, no jokes. The other team tapped into their wild side, howling occasionally and in some cases getting way to rough. The game functioned with little strings you tied on your arm, if the string got pulled off, you die and have to get another one, from your limited supply of lives. We won in the last minute of play, by an intrepid Josh running to get their flag and sprinting back with a couple chasers, who were never going to catch him. One guy who was chasing him got absolutely ENDED by Dirk, so yeah Blue team > Red Team.

 

As seems the way of things around here, the night ends off with hot chocolate.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

monkey blood...

[Smiley73]

mercurochrome, it clots blood, while looking like blood, I shall get a wiki page

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merbromin

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i know what mercurichrome is. didnt ever hear it called that

[Turin Turambar]

I think that this is a terrific story that is being told.

 

 

I award you 10 points from my stash.

[Smiley73]

monkey blood is what the teachers called it when we got scrapes on the playground, its a lot easier to remember than big words like mercurochrome

[Smiley73]

Getting points for something that will benefit the Real Life me anyway? SCORE! It is actually surprising that it is as much of a story as it is, that is why I prefer not elaborating past anything I didn't know at that point, but don't worry about the guy who fell, he's doing alright

[Smiley73]

what I did forget to say was that this was day 8 so this is one half of the way done already, don't worry, Day 9 is a big un

[Smiley73]

These are from Day 8, enjoy!

 

 

Howzit, bugga! (form of greeting used by the two guys on the mats)

 

 

gathering round the boat

 

 

Touchies!

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

im glad you have fun. fun is good.

[Niniel]

This is amazing. Thanks for sharing, Smiley. It´s very far from the way I live.

[Smiley73]

its very far from the way everyone lives. That's what makes it so special

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

yes

[Smiley73]

Day 9:

 

Firstly I’d like to point out that as of now I am in the second half of the Epic; it is day 9 of the 16 day Epic. Also the schedule for today starts off with a raft race between the Red and Blue teams and then the afternoon would be water-based competitions and a last chance at skiing, oh dear.

 

The plan for the race is to get bussed off to 1.8 kilometers away from where the rafts were going to be pulled to (about 1.1 miles for all you imperial people). Then we run/jog to the boats and swim it to the other side of the lake where we carry it to where we built the rafts and then undo the rafts and put all the materials we used back for the next group coming in to use. The teams would start off with a ten minute delay between them, to stop any accidental interference.

 

Before we set off, I got my stuff ready, put on my boots and took a trip to the ablution blocks because I fervently believe in the principle of “go, before you go”. When I was working back to the tents to meet up with my teammates when I heard Ozzie call out to me, so thinking I was late I jogged down to where everyone else in the bus, when something very unexpected happened.

 

In a way only teen-aged boys can, the bus broke out into a full volume “Happy Birthday!”, first came confusion until I realised that they we singing for ME! You have no idea the shock you get when you forgot your own birthday, I just never thought about it a lot even before the Epic, and definitely not over the last few days. On the Epic the date isn’t anywhere near the first thing you think of in the morning. Also note this was Happy Birthday #1.

 

Now apparently because of my birthday boy-ness my group voted me to get to be tugged along by the boats along with our raft, which suited me just fine. So I got tugged out first, the other group had an injury being tugged out, injury as in injured, this guy was going to bases but didn’t do hikes, something wrong with his hamstring. What I did find on the other side of the lake was a dead fish, a couple days dead; well I thought it was days, the eyes we already decomposed/plucked out. Apparently Josh found another somewhere else around the lake and he suspects finrot.

 

Eventually I did spot some guys coming down a hill and when they did get down, I got in fragments that basically the Red group went “Screw this” and decided to walk all the way to their raft. Our team passed them about halfway through so they were pretty far behind. Of course, the staff weren’t too happy about this so the punishment for them would be to untie both rafts, which I had no problems with.

 

The swim across the lake was pretty tiring, especially seeing as quite a few of the guys in my group are strong swimmers, for most of the part I was just swimming to keep up, instead of pushing the raft along with me. Most of the time we were swimming normally, just pushing against the raft’s frame until someone got the idea to go “3, 2, 1, PUSH”, which meant we pushed and then swam back to the raft and pushed again. Eventually though everyone thought it would be a great idea to put me on top, again because of my birthday boy-ness. Cue round #2 of “Happy Birthday”. Nearer to the end I jumped back off to help along and dragged and lifted the raft back to where we built it. Then the obligatory winning photograph and then have a laugh at the Red group. In the end we finished the race 20 minutes ahead of them.

 

 

 

While the Red group undid both rafts, our group went skiing. Apparently the Red group’s morale actually increased while taking the boats apart, they got a vibe going, sang a little, which I guess is better than being grumbly about it.

 

As for the skiing I went second to last in my groups turn. The crackpot/last ditch/Mythbuster’s solution was to put someone else up on jump/trick skis, which are made to do insane stuff like three people on top of each other insane. Again like any good Try/Fail cycle, this failed to get me up, even though at some points over the last two days I had gotten far closer than when I began. Fortunately, those teachers don’t give up early. So I put on the jump skis while the last guy left, someone new came into the water to get my legs up in the right position and then Peter (da boss-man) gathered anyone around to basically produce the pulling force of a diesel-powered engine. That human engine would then pull me much like a normal engine would, put faster (this did happen yesterday as well, on the normal skis, with no results). Let me tell you no-one was more surprised than me when I actually got up for a little when guys were pulling. A couple tries later and I totally got up before letting go as I approached the banks where everyone was pulling from. I got all ready once the other guy was done skiing, pretty soon I was getting up pretty far, I got up for a few seconds once before falling down (from pulling the rope that connects you to the boat, it basically makes you fall on your face). A couple attempts later I was up on my feet and slightly shocked as I finally started skiing. That’s not to say the ride went perfectly, there were some times I came pretty close to falling from pulling on my arms, or my skis going weird directions. Even then, I got an entire round trip through, which included a part when the teacher driving the boat (I use driving because I can) made the boat go all choppy, which makes little waves that you go over, sort of like bumps in a road. By the end of it my arms were hurting from keeping a deathgrip and ended, by letting go of the tow rope as we were doing a flyby of where we started, which you’re supposed to do.

 

After this little event had lunch and rested with most of the guys in my group while people were competing in competitions. Basically we had canoeing and sailing competitions on the afternoon of the third day. These are voluntary so you get prizes, since my horrific capsize in canoeing I was deciding to stick to sailing, which was put off due to really strong winds. I saw Josh and Luke start their canoe race; they were going like beasts, with perfect timing, it looked incredible, of course they won, I’m pretty sure they set a new record as well. Peter, the boss-man, came up to me and asked me to come to the staff hut. Of course the first thing that comes to my mind is, “Now what have I done now?”, a quick check of what I’d done over the days came up with nothing so I decided to not stress about it, if it was anything it was probably about my hand, and that is when I remember having a talk with my Science teacher and Epic organiser Mr. Robertson who told me my birthday was at Waterbase and I would get a cake, needless to say I was amping for cake. When I did get near to the hut I saw some Black Label (liquor) cases, but no cake. But the cake was inside the black label box. It wasn’t actually a Black Label box as much as parts of a Black Label box staple into a cake container from a Spar (shop which I guess was in the area). Now I have neglected to say there were TWO boxes which means TWO cakes. Double cake meant I had a smile plastered on my face as I listened to The boss-man explain that the thought was I’d keep one for my group and give one to the other group, of course the decision was up to me.

 

Walking back with two cakes in my hand, I was tempted very much to keep both cakes for my group, but I overcame that by thinking about brightening up the other groups day. Now the introduction of cake to boys who have been away from home for more than a week can have varied effects. For most it got people saying/shouting thank you’s, followed by a hearty round of “Happy Birthday” (#3 for anyone still counting). For some, like Dirk, that means a hug, which you would understand if you put yourself in his position. I divided the cake up pretty evenly, everyone got a piece, I got two. If you’re interested both cakes we normal sponge cakes with white icing, one with green sprinkles, the other with orange, I gave the orange one to the red group. For my Birthday-ness and good sharing of cake I got a cup of cold Coke from Josh and Luke which they got from their canoeing exploits. Cold Coke is a commodity that is highly sought after on Epic, I’m pretty sure some people would sell their first child for a 2L at this point.

 

A lot later in the day I went out with on of the camp staff who was a really good sailor. Despite two people being on a single man boat we went INSANELY fast, and as we all know, faster is more fun. Once we had gone along for a while I actually sort of slipped off the boat, like completely unexpectedly, luckily though another guy was close at hand in a rubber duck to take me on board and back to shore. The sailing race, did not go well I was in a team with Guy and both of us capsize many, many, MANY times. This still was probably the most fun I had at Waterbase purely because capsizing and being completely clueless about what is going on can actually be very fun.

 

At Tribal council today things were good, most people didn’t even have lows. The teachers were bleak about the Red teams under-performance at raft racing but were happy to see them come together while taking the rafts apart. I of course could have no low on this day and I said that I had to many highs to name to keep everything brief. Then I made the Boss-man’s high for a second day running, for much the same that got it to me yesterday (determination, not complaining, that sorta stuff). When we were breaking up there were shouts of “Happy Birthday!” but no singing, thank god.

 

No night activity tonight. This is because tomorrow morning we leave early to CYCLE to Algeria and then walk to our next basecamp, Jamaka. *gulp*

 

 

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

did you guys vote people offthe island in tribal voulcil?

[Smiley73]

running joke, and no, but I have forgotten to include Dummy of the days, which I may as well do now:

 

Day 1: Buck Whaley for Shouting "I GET TO SKI IN MY JOCKS!", after an agreement with the teachers taking the skiing, incidentally Buck also missed the turn off to the camp earlier on the first day, and got very dehydrated

 

Day 2: Peter Anguria for nearly drowning from spraying water in his face

 

Day 3: Mas'ood Bemat (The guy with the pillow in the first picture from Day 8, also the boy with a messed up hamstring) for making the most mistakes I think could be made in a sentence:

"Cape Town is the third most dangerous Country in Europe"

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

this is nothing like girls school.

[Smiley73]

thank the lord

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

yeah. next life im gonna be a boy.