Ya Jullay!

(Bye! in Ladakhi)

After over a year of planning and preparation, I'm finally off to India! Thanks to everyone who's helped make this happen.

Needless to say I'm incredibly excited and happy to finally be going to the Himalayas! Hopefully this expedition will open lots of doors to me and help me to explore even more places and do even cooler things in the future. My Instagram bio currently says "Wannabe adventurer and explorer. Real life napper and dreamer". Here's hoping the "wannabe" won't always have to be there.

I'll be completely uncontactable for the next six weeks, so hang on in there 'til I'm back and able to share my adventure with you all! If you think you're going to suffer from Anna withdrawal symptoms whilst I'm away, feel free to scroll through my Pinterest and Instagram for hours on end whilst you cry to yourself.

See you on the other side...


P.S. Have a look at these pages for updates on the expedition:
BES Facebook
BES Blog

Flights booked!

After a confusing yet hilarious phone conversation trying to explain that Flight is actually my surname and yes, people find it funny in airports and no, I don't want to be a pilot, I've managed to book my flights from Heathrow to Delhi to Leh, and Leh to Delhi to Heathrow!

Planning and preparation are all coming together now and all I've got to do before I go is buy a few more bits of kit, get one more vaccination and pass my degree. The degree part is terrifying, so I'd better go now and get back to revision!

Fundraising update

Here's a quick update on how my fundraising is going:

• I've been given a generous donation from the Guildford Lions Club - thank you!

• I've now almost paid for the expedition - just got to book the flights

• I'm gradually sourcing kit (by begging, borrowing and buying) to take with me from the very extensive kit list I've been given by BES

So overall, things are going well - I want to go the Himalayas now!

Meeting the TL Team

Last weekend the 20 Trainee Leaders for the British Exploring India and Amazon 2015 expeditions met for our first training session. Despite going on two different expeditions, the two TL groups will be doing all of our training together.

We met up at a scout camp in Lichfield on Friday evening, arriving in dribs and drabs because of major train delays and traffic - I was the first to arrive, so I made the most of the tea and coffee provided and chatted to James and Sam, the two guys taking our training.

We started off the weekend by talking lots about leadership, what it means, what makes a good leader, what our leadership style is at the moment and how we're going to develop over the course of the TL programme. It was interesting to hear about other people's experiences with leadership and their expectations for the programme. We all shared our favourite quotes -

"Leaders are not born or made - they're grown"

"Assumption is the mother of all f**k ups"

"Be the best you can be"

I'm sure lots more quotes will come out of the time we all spend together! (especially if we carry on playing Cards Against Humanity..)

We split into different 'syndicates', groups that we're going to stay in to complete our training (we're working towards a certificate in Basic Expedition Leadership, Expedition First Aid and Offsite Safety Management, as well as doing the expedition to the Himalayas), which was a great way to get to know people better (and learn names!).

We had a look at different tents and tried putting them up, then cooked our lunch on some different stove options. The dehydrated ration packs weren't actually that bad, but a 1,500kcal lunch definitely wasn't necessary!

We then learnt more about what's required to be an expedition leader - lots of risk assessments and planning, as well as the ability to be adaptable and motivational once you're out on the expedition. It's made me even more excited about developing my leadership style and putting it all into practice out in India and afterwards on other expeditions.

Our next training weekend is pretty soon - off to the Lake District in three weeks' time. A blog post will follow :)

Training update - parkrun

Our parkrun selfie snapchat!

This morning I ran 5km in Durham with parkrun - if you haven't heard of parkrun take a look at their website here:  http://www.parkrun.org.uk/

Essentially they're free, 5km timed runs, run by volunteers, at loads of locations around the world. They're great fun and I always try to go along at 9am on a Saturday morning when I don't have an OTC training weekend.

My time wasn't great today as I ended up doing two exercise classes (Extreme Core and Insanity) back to back last night, and now everything hurts! But it was a fab way to start the day and I'm feeling good now.

I always try to keep fit, both for my health, my happiness, and for OTC, but my upcoming expedition to the Himalayas is giving me even more motivation - a lack of fitness would massively impact my ability to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Ladakh, and I might as well make myself as fit as I can.

I've been doing lots of running (both intervals and long scenic runs), spinning, and exercise classes, like Extreme Core, Box Fitt and Insanity, as well as a few trips to CrossFit (find out more here: http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-is-crossfit.html) on the outskirts of Durham. I always try to drag other people along, but this morning it was my housemate Sophie who woke me up and got me on my bike!

More training updates to come..

Expensive afternoon buying kit

I've just spent my afternoon at Cotswold Outdoor in Durham, looking at sleeping bags and walking poles and eventually buying some!

It involved a lot of rolling around on the floor zipped up in a sleeping bag feeling overly warm, and walking up and down the shop floor trying out the poles.

The sleeping bag has a comfort rating of -18°C so hopefully I should stay toasty no matter how high we go.

I'm very happy with my purchases and can't wait to use them in the mountains of India!