The 130 strong group of Harrow students return to Bangkok this morning after their week spent journeying to Pak Koh Lam a Karen village in the Chiang Dao region. Here they helped to install a new water pumping system in the village for the school.

The materials and pump for the project were all funded by the Harrow students themselves.

Reto, Num and the Widl Planet crew kept things running logistcally and on the river.

Well done to all.

Wild planet photographer Danny “Kojack” Bowes was along so images to follow

Robin

Reto has finished the initial set up of our new Wild Lodge in Northen Thailand in the Muang Khong valley. Images will be posted later. This will be developed along with the local community over the next few months.

Plans are being made with Sal Madden to conduct the first trip on the new self-supported 3 day route from Muang Khong to summit Doi Chiang Dao, Thailands third highest peak at around 6,600 ft.

I have just returned from a recce in the valley area with the team from AIS and our local guide P’Mu and after a hard off road day it looks like we will be putting together a challenging journey program for their Yr 9 students involving an exploratory trek around the Muang Khong valley and a decent of the Mae Teng River in small self contained groups. We found some great free camping sites out towards Hui Nam Dan a Lisu village and will be posting some images shortly

Cheers

Robin

Last weekend saw a full training program for the 6 participants on the BCU 2 star training course and foundation safety test.

Most of the course members were from Harrow international school whose staff are looking to gain the Level 1 coach awards for use on their in house lake ( The 2 star and FST are the pre requisite awards for the coach training course)

We were also joined by Malcom Blake who was looking to certify his exisiting kayaking skills for his new role working with Sally Madden in the outdoor ed department at Bankok Patana school.

Saturday was in kayaks running through personal skills and some work on bank and water based rescue. Sunday was a switch to open boats and the introduction to some, of the single paddle.

We had some fit people with us including the Harrow Adventure race team of Brian and Gordon, but all agreed, open boating could be far more strenuos than it looked !

By the end of the weekend skills of all the participants were to a 2 star level and we look to schedule the final section of the FST for September.