Borneo challenges Newhaven students
TWENTY one intrepid Newhaven College Years Nine to 11students have just returned from the trip of a lifetime to Borneo for a 29 day adventure with World Challenge.
Year 9 student Ruby Cannon said, “The experience was unimaginable.
“You could never recreate anything like it!
“You had to be there to really understand how amazing it was”.
These sentiments are echoed by all Newhaven students who participated.
Arriving in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, they immediately set about preparing for their trek through the Croker Range, in the shadow of Asia’s highest mountain, Mt Kinabalu.
Recent earthquakes in the region made summiting Mt Kinabalu impossible, however, many other challenging opportunities arose including white water rafting and zip-lining.
Following a few recovery days in Kota Kinabalu, the travellers headed to Sepilok to meet the orangutan, sun bears and proboscis monkeys.
Travelling South into Sarawak, challengers were transported by four wheel drive to Ba’ Kelalan, a small community about four kilometres from the Indonesian border.
The 125 Kilometre journey took seven hours to complete due to the poor condition of the only access road.
In Ba’ Kelalan, students built a concrete path, patched some potholes in other concrete paths, dug numerous drains, and assisted with the clearing of a rice paddy.
The high level of exposure to mud was far too tempting, and the ensuing mud fight will forever be a highlight for many challengers.
The Newhaven College team ran numerous barbeques, bake sales and drink stands in order to raise group funds, totalling $5000.
These funds were used to provide the community of Ba’ Kelalan with all of the resources necessary to complete the project work – concrete, wheelbarrows, shovels, hoes, machetes, buckets, and tools.
All of the tools were then donated to the community for any future maintenance needs.
Sporting equipment including volleyball nets and balls, AFL footballs, tennis balls and soccer balls as well as a wide range of school supplies were also purchased in Borneo, to support local business, and donated to the community.
While these donations were gratefully received by the community, perhaps the most heart-felt donation was to the families of the guides who were killed in the Kinabalu earthquakes.
Four guides, while helping lead their respective tour groups off the mountain, were killed in landslides that occurred during an aftershock.
It was probable that, had the Newhaven College group assailed the mountain as had originally been planned, one or more of these guides would have been responsible for the group.
In recognition of this, the students donated $2500 to the guides’ living relatives who lost their sole breadwinner.
To put the donation into perspective, an average daily wage for a mountain guide is around $20.
After farewelling Ba’ Kelalan, the travellers journeyed to the southern tip of Malaysian Borneo to the city of Kuching. Several luxurious days in a resort helped the group prepare for the exhausting 30 hour journey home to Melbourne.
Past annual World Challenge tour destinations taken by students at Newhaven College include Nepal and Cambodia.
The 2016 travellers are preparing to tackle Mongolia, on horseback.
Hello: Vaughn Dennis and a proboscis monkey were equally delighted to meet in Sepilok.
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Aug 4 2015. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
