Ringing in the New year with Adventure (Madras Plus 30 December 1999)
Some dance their way into new year, others celebrate it wild, some do it sober, but Maj. Ashok Candade (Retd) of Wildertrails and his team at the Wildertrails Adventure Club have decided to usher in the new year in an adventurous way. They will rappel their way down the Nagari rockface on the 1st of January after watching the millennium sunrise, from 3,200 ft a top. "This is not the first time that we are into Nagari. But, climbing up the rocky surface during the early morning, on the 1st day of the year, is really different," says Candade. The members plan to start by 31st December to reach Nagari (en route to Tirupati), so that a base camp is set up by the evening itself. "We plan to reach the camp before the night is out. The huge bonfire at the base camp will hopefully 're-inject' the much needed energy for the next day's climb," he adds. Wildertrails hopes to make it a family adventure and encourages such visits by the entire family, at a reduced cost. In keeping with the spirit of the new millennium, Wildertrails has plans on for more excitement and adventure, throughout the year and more immediately in January itself. Maj. Candade is not the only person busy organising an adventure outing for the New Year Eve. "What's the point in just partying, year after year?" asks Dipankar Ghosh. Organiser of Outward Bound, he is another adventure enthusiast in the city. Ghosh is busy preparing the 'Y2k Thrillennium Country Bash', a complete private affair for a select group of fifty, hopes that people have a different choice before them. "We are organising a lot of HRD camps for the corporates and leadership camps for the schools and colleges through these adventure activities. And we have series of such camps throughout the year," Ghosh informs us. On the Eve, his country bash is all set for a night of canoeing, boating and cross-country obstacle courses. Of course, "unplugged music and bonfires before the tents are the regulars in our camps," says Ghosh. All these takes place at Rippling Grove, a huge camp site, 21 kms off Adyar (opp the SIPCOT I T Park).
BR
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