‘On dunes with Group 7 waiting for sun to rise. They started walking at 12 last night. Are now sleeping. 17 precious souls in sleeping bags surrounded by huge white dunes. What an incredible journey!’

I awoke to these words on my cellphone at 4:30am on a late November morning in 2004, signalling the end of the Somerset College Trek for the last of the seven groups taking part that year. The words were from Marion Siebrits, the Trek co-ordinator, and for me they will always symbolise the joy and wonder of ‘Trek’.

It was in 1998 when my predecessor and the founding head of Somerset College, David Wynne, inspired by a programme at Korowa Anglican Girls’ School in Melbourne, Australia, began to plan the idea of a physical journey by a whole grade of students across the mountains and rivers of the Western Cape. Together with Richard Codrington, a staff member, and others, they mapped out and then walked, drove, talked and bribed their way along a route beginning at the school and ending at Koppie Alleen in the De Hoop Nature Reserve near the mouth of the Breede River, over 350 km away. Some months later the first Trek was underway, at that stage involving the Grade 9 class in the February heat and dust for 28 days of hiking, canoeing and cycling.

Today we undertake the Trek annually in November with a Grade 9 year group of over 100 students in six gender-specific groups. Walking out after an emotional farewell ceremony involving the school, parents and friends, each group of 15-18 students and two adult leaders journeys for 27 days on foot, in canoes, and on bicycles in the experience of a lifetime.

Why send Grade 9s on a journey involving such intensive planning, preparation, logistical support, and human and physical resources? Our thinking behind a journey of this nature is fourfold, and the attainment of these goals far outweighs any pressure that the enterprise places on the school. The key goals behind the Trek are the desire to:

• take young people out of their comfort zones, and to expose them to physical and mental challenges beyond anything in their life experience thus far
• develop leadership skills and the ability to work in a team
• stimulate emotional and spiritual growth
  
• provide a ‘rite of passage’ in the high-school cycle – a coming of age into young adulthood before they enter the last three years of schooling
  

Key to the success of these goals is the working of each of the groups. The adult leaders’ presence is there to ensure the safety of the group, and to facilitate the daily ‘debrief’ session around the campfire. The group is led each day by a different student who makes decisions about the route, allocation and consumption of food and water, the structure of the day, and so on. In short, the leadership of the group is left in the hands of that young person – and this is where much of the learning takes place. Groups typically go through a cycle beginning with some conflict and strong individualism, which then gives way after a number of days to a common identity, an understanding of the concept of ‘team’, and the survival of the whole.

The spirit of the Trek is perhaps best encapsulated in the Rudyard Kipling quotation that we print on the Trekkers’ shirts: ‘The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack’. The Trek is part of an outdoor leadership and personal growth programme that spans four of each student’s five years at the College, and includes week-long leadership and adventure camps in Grades 10 and 11.

Preparation for the Trek involves the students (or ‘Trekkers’ as we call them) and the parents in varying degrees of intensity. Trekkers undergo training sessions on topics such as personal hygiene, map reading, water safety, packing and managing a backpack, emergency first aid, and more. They are given fitness programmes, encouraged to acquire kit early, and to start walking with a backpack. Parents are briefed, and given regular communication about the ‘run-in’ to their child’s leaving. Planning, logistics and staff recruiting begin soon after the start of the year, as the co-ordinator, together with the role-players from the previous year, reflects on and then refines the plan.

Remarkably, finding twelve adult leaders each year who are prepared to leave behind family and home comforts for a month has not proven to be difficult. A number of staff members have volunteered year after year, and the queue of older past students to do Trek for the second time is growing! Having an additional three or four staff members out in the field in support roles places demands on our programme at school, but fortunately much of the Trek happens during the final examination time in November.

On their return the Trekkers walk triumphantly back into the school in a symbolic and moving way; they hand over their group’s flag, ring the slave bell, and fall into the arms of their anxiously waiting families and friends. It is only then that the Head, Trek co-ordinator and others can breathe easily – another successful and safe Trek has been completed!

On days 13 and 14, each individual spends 36 hours alone in the bush in a self-constructed shelter during a time that we call ‘solo’, which encourages intense self-reflection and the writing of letters and journals. A 2004 Trekker, Katherine Gray wrote whilst on solo: “… I can now fully dub myself a child of nature … solo is unexplainable, an experience that you can only share with others who have done it … I have never thought so much in my life, about myself, about my home, about Trek, who I am and who I want to be…”