i want to fly.
always wanted to.
but will I?

Sunday, November 09, 2008

I'm back from the OBS camp! What a fun and itchy 5 days!

Day 1

Got to school at about 7:05 am, 5 minutes late but not a big matter, Mr Sofian & Mr Yon got us to line up in 2 columns and collected our IC/Birth Cert/Passport Photocopies, while doing so Mr Sofian decided to "announce out" those whose birthdays were coming or had just passed, and that included me lol... Soon the bus arrived, and within 10 minutes, we arrived at the OBS Reception Centre at Punggol Jetty! We were the first school to arrive and quite early too, so early that the reception centre had not even been opened yet! So we waited for about 15 minutes until someone finally showed up to open up the reception centre. About the same time, other OBS participants from NJC arrived. We went into the reception centre and sat in columns while awaiting for all the schools to arrive. As we waited for the time to pass, more schools gradually arrived. When most of the schools were present, we were split into our OBS camp groups known as "Watches", each inclusive of 16 people, 4 from each school. I was in group 8, which was revealed to be Barker Watch.

In our groups, each went to a corner for ice-breaking games! After the games, we took a group photo!

From Left to Right, Bottom row to top row (Sorry for spelling anyone's name wrongly!):
Front Row: Natasha, Hui Li, Patricia, Odelia, Me, Qi Xun
Middle Row: Rachel, Elsee, Hiisham, Shi Yuan, Wayne, Harez, Sufian, Jill
Back Row: Prasanth, Robert, Yeo Kee, Leslie, Tiru
Our instructor was Jill, and also from OBS Sabah, Rachel and Elsee!

The photo taking was followed by more games until we left for the jetty, to board our boat and start our journey to OBS! Somehow, we were the last group to leave for the OBS campsite. While waiting for our turn to board the boat, we were given a list of ICs, Qi Xun and I volunteered to be the Store ICs. Soon, it was our turn to board the boat. Goodbye Singapore Island, hello Pulau Ubin! It was a short 15 minute ride to the island, we arrived at the jetty at the OBS campsite. On the walls of the Multi-purpose hall, it wrote "You will not discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore". This was what we came here for. To find what we can really do by leavng behind the comforts of home. After we put our bags on the 3rd floor just outside the Multi-Purpose Hall, we headed towards the Store Room/Dorm to do a stock check and pack the tents for the expedition starting tomorrow. We also had lunch later on at the cookhouse, one last taste of "good food" before we would be surviving on rations on the next few days.

Our first activity consisted of three parts. First was something like 'trust-falls' but not exactly a fall, Second was really a fall. Everyone held on to a orange tarp while one of us stood at the top step of a small flight of stairs. "Barker, are you ready?" Everyone holding the tarp would shout "Ever Ready!" The one to fall would than shout out "[name] falling!" At that point, everyone holding the tarp would say "Fall Lah!" and what comes next? Thats right, the fall! The objective was to catch the one falling without the tarp touching the ground. The third activity was belaying! All these 3 activities were to teach us to trust our team mates as our safety would be in each other's hands during such activities, team-building for the expedition to come.

After that, we collected our food rations for the next 3 days' expedition, went up to our hillside campsite for the first night to pitch our tents and then, dinner! Right after dinner, since we still had a lot of time on our hands, we had time to shower probably one last time for the next few days! Going up to our bags, we saw a wild dog walking around our bags! After a while, the dog went off, leaving us alone, phew! After our showertime, we were to assemble at the MPH at 8:30pm, for a safety briefing by Nurse Joe. The safety briefing was rather intresting, never knew about stingray stings in the area O_O. After the briefing, there was a "fire drill", not that we knew it was a drill until one of the instructors told us to move down to the "parade square"! Once that was over, we went back up again to our bags and got our stuff for the night, as well as pack our backpacks for the 3 day expedition. With our stuff, we trekked up to our campsite and went to sleep, not that we could actually fall asleep! Well, that's day 1 of any camp for ya!




Day 2

Just about everyone woke up at 4:45am(?), we quickly unpacked our tents and headed back to the OBS building. Going back to our bags to get our toothbrushes, we found the breakfast rations were ravaged through, probably by a stray dog! We cleaned up the mess and then assembled at the parade ground, and a nasty suprise awaited us, morning Physical Training! We did 3 cycles of 10 cycles of 5 exercises and then, a run around the facility. Although not exhausting, i was hungry since we had not had breakfast yet! Once we were dismissed after the PT, we were to have our breakfast and luckily, we got to eat at the cookhouse! After breakfast, we went back to our bags again to finish packing everything, changing into our wet-activity clothing/shoes and brought our bags to be kept at the store room for the next few days.

Next up, it was time for kayaking! Firstly, we loaded our backpacks onto the motor boat. Then, Jill tested us on kayaking stuff like paddling and recovering from a capsized kayak! It was fun during that briefing/lesson, just floating on my lifevest and playing around in the water. Just before we left the water to get our kayaks, there was this huge wave from a ship that just passed by. Most of us, stayed in the water to experience the wave, what a fun experience! In just a few short moments, the waves were gone and we headed up to shore. Forming a chain, we carried the kayaks down the rocky sloped-beach to the water, grabbed our kayaks and set off into the blue yonder, well it wasn't that far...paddling around the area to get used to kayaking, sharing my kayak or 'tri-yak' with Qi Xun and Wayne, once the other watch was ready, our 2 watched headed off for campsite 2 together! On the way, I heard the loud whining noise of a commercial or military transport aircraft's jet engine. But here, the approach path to Paya Lebar Air Base would mean the planes were coming in from around Malaysia and that meant, it was no RSAF aircraft! To my suprise, a US Air Force Boeing C-17A GlobeMaster III transport aircraft flew right over our heads! I wonder what is it doing here...

We arrived at Campsite 2 about 15 mintues later, breaking off from the other watch as they had not had their 'paddling fun' yet. Barker watch got off our kayaks at the ramp and carried them up. Jill told us that we could go for the jetty jump as the conditions were just right, but, we had to carry all the bags to shore. Thus, we brought all our bags from the motor boat onto dry land, and we quickly headed back up the jetty for the jetty jump! "You jump, I jump, everybody jump". I did jump.
Walking off the plank, the height didn't look intimidating to me. However, as I walked off the plank, accelerating downwards, the sensation of falling came to me. Just as quickly as it started, it ended as i hit the water. With a lound sound of gushing water, I sank into the water and floated right up. Unfortunately for my nose, I had forgot to hold on to it, and all of my nose was filled with seawater! With the help of Prasanth or Tiru (Sorry I can't remember who was it!), I swam over to the ladder and climbed back up the jetty! Everyone, despite of any fears, jumped. Example being Qi Xun and Odelia. While most of us wanted a second go, including me, we didn't. Jill promised us that she would let us do this again...or so she says...

Since we were the first group to arrive at campsite 2, we had loads of time on our hands. We had about 1 hour for our showertime! After our showertime, we changed into our climbing attire, for we were going to do rock-wall climbing next! The rock-wall was an A-frame rock-wall, the oldest rock-wall in singapore! Just a while after the first climber started climbing, it began to rain heavily. Luckily, the rain died down within a space of 15 mintues(?) and we could climb again! This old rock wall was rather unique. There were 4 climbing sides, which we used 2, one of it was literally a rock-face! the other looked more like modern rock-walls but the grips were way different. I reached the tops of both rock-walls!

With rock-climbing over, the last time we would do so for the duration of the camp, it was time for dinner! With solid fuel, we cooked instant noodles for dinner! After dinner, Jill taught us how to navigate with a compass and map, we were going to need this knowledge later as we were going to trek to where we would pitch our tents! After that, she told us a story of a boy who wanted to find out the meaning of life. The short trek started off with a long uphill staircase climb, a big flat open area which we could not see from one end to the other! That was followed by a short flight of steps going downhill, into a narrow and muddy path towards the reservoir which supplied clean water for the OBS facilities. Once we reached the reservoir, it was just a short walk up a relatively wide path to our camp. We set up our tents alongside many other watches, refilled our water bottles at the reservoir and went back to our tents, turning in for the night.

Day 3

As the day before, we woke up early, but this time slightly later at about 5+ am, we unpacked our tents, packed them into the backpacks and put them aside. Taking our tarp along, we went down to the reservoir, laid it out on a grasspatch. As the word "grasspatch" might suggest, there were a lot of grasshoppers, some as big as my thumb! Next up, morning exercises, not PT! Although similar, it was less intensive as the PT the day before, and after that, all the watches present played a game together! The game goes like this: The instructors will call out an action to do, such as "Left finger on red!", which then everyone would put their left finger on something red on anyone else! (in this case I was one of the few wearing red shirts!) With everyone with their finger on red on someone else, normally in large groups, the group where even one person did not do the following action properly would have to forfeit, jumping jacks! After the games, we had our breakfast! It was from our rations so we had limited food, but somewhat more than enough during breakfast! After having a few packets of biscuits, i grabbed some bread. There was bread and butter but no knife or anything to spread the butter on the bread! Solution? Smear the bread on the butter!

After breakfast, we were told to gather, it was time to reveal the location of the checkpoints of today's trek! We were given 8 coordinates and 2 location names, Chek Jawa and one more which i think is Headman's House. Being good at geography (=D), I managed to help find some of the coordinates on the map quite quickly and mark it down. When we finally had all 10 checkpoints, we quickly double-checked all coordinates. Before we set off, we had 1 more suprise! To have permission to go off, we had to accomplish this task: with everyone having a stone in one hand, all at once, we had to throw it to the person on our right and capture the stone from the one on our left, using the same hand. While it seemed easy, it definitely wasn't, but as a watch, we successfully accomplished the task in 10 minutes, much faster than the other watches as we were later told. Carrying our 10kg backpacks, at about 10:30am, we set off for the trek!

Very quickly, we met our first obstacle, a closed gate, which Jill opened for us!
It didn't take very long before we had to stop to take our bearings again. We stopped at a junction where there was also a banner, which says something inspirational. You shall find out what it is later on... During this short stop, we took the chance to apply insect repellent. However, mosquitos were not the main problem here, red ants were. They quickly crawled up into my shoes and socks, even biting me! At first unaware of what it was, I quickly stomped on my own feet, trying to kill whatever was biting me. Setting off again, we soon reached one of the main bearing points for our trek, 5-point junction, a junction which is exactly what the name implies. It has 5 paths joining together. Our first and closest checkpoint was just south of the junction and we were quickly near where the first checkpoint was. It took a while to find the small metal plates with sayings on them as it was within the jungle and not exatcly along the path. Unfortunately, I can't remember what it wrote!

Next, we continued east of our location to the next nearest checkpoint, only stopping momentarily for a lunch-break. After that, the next checkpoint had the most spectacular view, the highest point on Pulau Ubin! Along the way, some of us were lucky enough to spot a whole family of wild boars! The path to the top was a small, narrow path leading off the main road which we had trekked to by then. The path had a steep slope upwards, and when nearing the top, it got steeper still, having to use rocks jutting out of the ground as steps. I even saw a rooster on the way up! Further up on the path, the vefetation also closed in around the path. Finally, we reached a point, just below the highest point, where there was space to put down our bags. It was also there that we found the checkpoint. "The closer one gets to the top, the more one finds that there is no top". That was definitely true for us, having climbed up so far with 10kg backpacks. Jill then led us to the true highest point, and I can say without exaggeration that it is the most beautiful sight (of scenery) I have ever seen with my own eyes (not through pictures etc.). Although it was also rather scary, the view was magnificent! There was a lake below, filling an abandoned quarry, and the water was a blue, darker than the sky but lighter than the ocean, with the sun reflecting off the top of the waves, 63 metres down. Standing on a huge rock that seemed to jut out off the cliff, Jill told us a story while we tried to contemplate the scary position she was standing at. The story was about a boy who was mean to everyone and had no friends. After the story, she invited us to give a shout out to the rest of the island, in the direction of the lake. Before leaving this beautiful sight, everyone shouted "Barker!" together, listening to the echo that came back to us. We went down, grabbed our backpacks and went down the hill. How I wish I brought a camera!

We continued trekking across the island, going to many checkpoints along the way until we finally came to a rest at another junction. Now, here's our dilema. We had to get back to Campsite 2 by 4:30pm. We have trekked about 5-6 km across the island, and we have only 3.5 more hours to 4:30pm, which meant within half an hour we would have to turn back and head for Campsite 2, our endpoint. The two paths at the junction, one led to the NPCC Campsite area where there was 1 checkpoint, and the other towards the village, where the headman's house was. Resting our tired legs, we were reluctant to start moving again, but we knew we had to, time was running short. We decided to head north towards the NPCC campsite checkpoint but not long after heaidng that way, we turned back and took the other path, to the Headman's house as it was the closer of the two. Jill told us that if we spotted any wild boars, a particular species of bird, or the spider she showed to us earlier, it would count as a checkpoint. She also revealed to us that there was a life-size figure of Cookie Monster (yes, of Sesame Street!) not far from there.

Just before a steep down-hill slope, we heard the call of a bird. I managed to spot it, high up on a tall tree, and not 1 but 2 of them! Together with the wild boars spotted earlier, they were accounted for as checkpoints, making up for the Chek Jawa checkpoint which we knew we could not get to in time, being on the extreme end of the island. At the bottom of the slope, we stopped at a shelter to have another lunch break while looking for the checkpoint sign. While I can't remember what exactly it said, I do remember it was an old Peruvian saying similar to "Every journey begins with a single step". After the lunch-break, Jill lead us to the cookie-monstor figure! After seeing the figure, we had to head back to campsite 2. Along the way, we saw a flattened scorpion! We also passed by 2 or 3 other watches who were still heading eastwards while we were heading westwards back to camp, meaning to say, we were in the lead! We stopped again at the German Girl Shrine which was just off a rocky path. Jill then explained to us about the shrine and how it became of.

After the shrine stop, we resumed our trek back to campsite 2. Along the way, an Airbus A340-600 flew over us! As the path was along the south coase of the island, we could see another island just off Ubin. Soon, we arrived where we knew that we were getting close to camp. A signboard which wrote "OBS Property. No Trespassing." at a junction. Obviously by the sign and also by the forested path, we knew that this was the correct path, which it was again confirmed when we went pass 5-point junction. At around 4pm, we reached where we knew it was the final stretch, that banner I mentioned earlier. "Perseverance prevails when all else fails." Now I know why it was placed there, it had a special purpose for being there. By 4:15pm, we reached the other gate of campsite 2! Everyone cheered, for we had done what we would not have normally done and maybe even thought that we could not do. We had trekked almost completely non-stop for 6 hours while carrying our heavy backpacks. As much as our legs ached, nothing could stop us from reaching the shelter to put our backpacks down. Once they came off our shoulders, it was as though we were weightless! Also as an added bonus, we were the first watch to make it back to camp, while at the same time having reached the most checkpoints! Everyone gathered in a circle, faced the person to the right and gave him/her a good long massage! Right after the massage, the next watch arrived! Together, we congratulated them on arriving back at Campsite 2.

After a long well-deserved rest, we had our shower-time! Feeling refreshed, we then set up our tents down at the shelter by the pier before having our dinner! I ate quite a lot of mushrooms that day! At dusk, while we were having cooking our dinner, we were told we have to move to right beside the pier as there was fogging to be carried out. Although we moved to where we were told to, we still had to cover our food as the cloud went past us. Looking to the east, I could clearly see lights of airplanes coming to land at Changi! After dinner, we moved our tents from the shelter to the grass by the pier and beach. After nightfall, just before lights-out, all the watched had a debriefing together, sharing our experience of the trek. It was quite late already, and after such a long trek we were weary, so unlike the first and second night, we fell asleep rather quickly.

Stay Tuned for Camp Day 4 & 5!

***