Recently eight of our students, in two groups, successfully completed their practice expedition around Kosmaj mountain, 50 km south of Belgrade, supervised by Mr Stevanovic and Mr Howie.
The Duke of Edinburgh International Award requires students to complete 6 hours of purposeful activity on each of two days. In addition, the students had to set up their tents and prepare their own food for one night. This is one of the four sections of this award, but for many students the most exciting section.
One group had an expedition topic to look at the demise of Kosmaj tourism, and the other the religious buildings in the area and their significance for the area.
Having planned their hikes around the mountain in order to get to/from appropriate locations they set off on Saturday morning, maps in hand. They successfully navigated around some lovely scenery on the mountainside for many hours in lovely weather and both groups arrived, late afternoon, at their camping area. There they had to set up their tents and cook their own food over a fire. Being tired they decided that a party was out of the question and they were asleep far earlier than normal! The next morning (having been awoken at 6 am) they had to take down the tents and clear the site. Following this they had a second day of hiking and exploring the local area, using their map reading skills to navigate around.
Come Sunday afternoon both groups arrived at their final checkpoint, tired but very happy. They, and we, are proud of their achievement – well done to all involved.
