I am just back from a WAFA course in Singapore, I attended wanting to gain another perspective on first aid and CPR and came away very impressed. Mark and Sarah gave a fantastic course and I met a great bunch of people.

We at the Wild lodge now plan to talk to the folks @ WMI in Wyoming about running some programs at the Wild Lodge in the latter part of this year.

In addition our good friend Rob Houghton will be coming over to run some two days outdoors programs with basic first aid and CPR with a Wilderness bent.

Details and scheduling to follow.

Most of the trips that have been postponed at the lodge due to flood related issues have now been fitted in in our new year schedule. Lodge is looking great at the moment as we come into the coolest part of the year.

To continue to reassure.. Routes to the lodge are all flood free, the lodge itself is green and the weather is great :) as the lodge is 600m above sea level flooding here is not likely whatever the situation :)

Any specific queries please contact us directly on info@thewildlodge.com

Thanks for all the mails and calls but The Wild Lodge is not flooded and none of our expeditions have been affected by the floodwaters.

Central Thailand has been flooded ( the rice plains ) and that water is moving though Bangkok on its way to the sea. The management of this mass of water and directing it around Bangkok is what is filling the news.

The Wild Lodge is outside Bangkok and not in the flooded area, or the waters path to the sea.

Luckily our offices (and homes ) in Bangkok are also not in the direct area of flooding and would possibly be the last area to flood should Bangkok be totally inundated. So we are counting our selves pretty lucky, + having rafts and boats we are equipped for all eventualities.

We will keep you posted on this and how we can help the poor people that have been flooded.

The Wild Planet crew

Our survey of the caves in Muang Khong was thwarted by the access road being washed away, but our Whitewater rescue workshop for the guides was a success. This workshop focused on standardizing our guide equipment and basic rafting procedures in general + we had a workshop from Graham Wardle with regards to transport and immobilization of suspected spinal injuries.

Our practical session focused on access to casualties mid river and the rigging and use of a tension traverse.

The boys are all fit and ready for the coming season kicking off with Nam Wa expeditions mid October. Check out our facebook page for images.

www.facebook.com/thewildlodge

We have recently invested in a fleet of sea kayaks to enable self support expeditions around the island chains of the Gulf of Thailand. We have some great 2,3 4 and 5 days routes and will be showcasing with images very soon.

We will be working with our friend, owner of Paddle Asia, Dave “Old School” Williams ( Andaman Sea) to turn Thailand into the complete destination for IYA kayaking from Bronze to Gold.

We its not strictly re-thatching in the English cottage sense, more re roofing in the traditional Thai structure sense. But both use a form of reed, in our case rice stalks that have been folded over a Bamboo strip to form a roofing panel aligning two layers of rice straw in the same direction which is then lapped at around 4 - 6 inch spacing.

The Main sala has now been completely re-thatched with “Ya Ka” as this is called, just in time for the rainy season. Also the veranda roofs on the main lodge and lodges are almost complete. The traditional rice straw roofing that we use has a life span of around 2 -3 years. This time under advice from our local thatcher we have re roofed with the individual panels closer together ( 3 inches) to give us a roof that will last longer.

Room re fits will be going ahead in the next few weeks along with re flooring of the main sala balcony area.

Plans for the long awaited organic vegetable garden are underway and rough sketches of our new study center/dorm building

Pics to follow.

It is with a tear or two the team at Wild Planet wish Jackie Shaw a fond fair well as she heads back to Australia in her words “to get married and have babies” We wish her and Simmo all the best for the future and hope to welcome them back to Thailand at some point. She will be sorely missed by all on this years UWSEA programs in Northern Thailand

Check out the shots from the recent program on the gallery or flikr

We have always wanted some mountain bike elements of our own in and around the lodge. So we can play on them ourselves + use them as a warm up before heading up to the downhill runs on Khao Ito. Stevie Wainright will be heading to the lodge next week to survey and design a suitable route and siting for elements.

Stevie is a old school BMX’er and now full on mountain biker with some course building experience in his native Ireland.

We hope to come up with a circuit that is usable for beginners but still fun and challenging for more experienced riders + can be ridden by the old boys in the WP team :)

As the project evolves we will post some images.