Roedean Girls High - GOES DOWN THE ORANGE ! - DATE POSTED 1 OCTOBER 09

Roedean goes down ...... the Orange River!
30th of September, 2009

Roedean School in Johannesburg is an active supporter of The President's Award for Youth Empowerment under the inspirational leadership of Sandy Murray.
In August 23 Award Participants from Roedean braved the Orange River to complete their requirements for the Adventurous Journey.

Below are the reflections of Award Participant, Boitsheko Ganyane:

On the 16th of August 2009, 23 Gold and Silver President's Award girls were ready to start their Adventurous Journey to the Orange River.
There we all were at six o'clock, on a rather chilly Sunday morning packed and ready to go. Although Mrs Murray had spent months preparing for the trip,
we were partly unaware of the distance we had to cover. Luckily, we had all researched different topics about the areas we would visit and the people who
made their mark there. We spent some time on the bus teaching each other about places like Kuruman, The Richtersveld and Namaqualand just to name a few.
We even learnt about famous people like David Livingston and his wife Mary Moffat.

After approximately eleven hours on a bus, we finally stopped for the night to set up camp at a National Falls Park called Augrabies.
We woke up the next morning to the roaring sound of the falls, and we had an opportunity to see this truly amazing sight.
After yet another five hours of travelling we finally got to our destination and we were warmly welcomed by our guides.
  
The next morning we packed our belongings into buckets, and started the real journey along the Orange River. The weather conditions were extreme, ranging
from cold winter nights to sweltering hot days. To our surprise, it even rained once; this is very rare considering that we were in a desert. Despite this,
we managed to paddle for four days with the occasional canoe capsizing. This provided us with a good laugh and many stories to tell. By the end of the trip
we were all "professionals". Paddling 68 km down the Orange River really proved to be a growing experience, but so did the food. It would be crazy to leave
out the fact that the food was absolutely amazing, and it had all of us ladies queuing for seconds and sometimes even thirds. Led by four men, we really did
learn a lot from information about the local aquatic birds and even some phrases in Damaranama, a language spoken by the Nama people. Every night we were
blessed with a carpet of stars to light the way, and we even had the privilege of learning about some of them from one of our own peer group.

By the end of the trip we all walked away not just knowing the greatness of our accomplishment, but having formed unbreakable bonds with each other,
our guides and even our amazing teachers. I am sure we are all glad to be taking part in The President's Award, because without it, some of us would never
have been able to explore some of the amazing wonders of the world the way we have.

As Mrs Murray would say "It is never too late to join The President's Award"
 
Well done to you all!