Phil and Stephen's Coast to Coast cycle for Ocean Stars Trust

As part of our trip to Sri Lanka, we have been asked to fundraise some money to help fund the good work on the ground that Ocean Stars Trust is doing.  Phil and Stephen decided that they would cycle the 420 miles from Penzance in Cornwall, to Margate in Kent over the course of seven days. They were joined by two friends, Barney and Liam, who also helped to raise money for the charity.  The trip had its ups and downs - being equally gruelling, fun, beautiful and exhilarating and exhausting.

We got off to a slow start in Cornwall, due to a few hitches involving equipment and maps, and were getting a bit worried by about day two or three, that we would be too far behind schedule to reach Margate in time.  As it happened we actually made up lots of time on the route after Dorchester, once the hills that had been slowing us down, and tiring us out, flattened out.  However, this is where we saw arguably some of our most beautiful scenery, such as the beach scene below.

Throughout the trip we mostly camped in wild places or fields that we found, which varied from extremely beautiful (such as the clearing on the River Dart pictured below) to fairly challenging shall we say (such as an old cow field on a fairly steep gradient).  On day four Phil hit a bit of a wall and suddenly fell ill, and so took the train for a day to recuperate and to keep pace with the remaining cyclists. However, he rallied and joined us for the rest of the expedition.  Partly as a result of this, and partly because of our dire need for a shower, we decided to book a B'n'B in Bournemouth where we were put up by the very hospitable Selda.  Many thanks to you - your food, biscuits and stories were much appreciated!

The following night we were lucky enough to be put up again by the family of one of Stephen's university friends in Brighton, where we again enjoyed a delicious home cooked meal and a warm bed.  Many thanks again Fiona and family for your kindness and interesting conversation.

We arrived in Margate in Kent at around 1pm on our last day which meant that we could spend the afternoon relaxing, which felt like the best feeling in the world at the time.   We celebrated by going for a dip in the sea, and then dining at the largest Wetherspoons pub in the country in Ramsgate.

Thank you to all those who supported us and who have donated to OST.  If you still wish to donate the link is below.  At the time of writing the cycling team had raised £1418

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/oceantooceanforoceanstars

June planning morning

The team met again on the 30th June for a full morning of planning for our trip.  This was the first occasion that we spend a long time learning songs and practising the activities that we would be doing with the children in Sri Lanka.

We arrived at Dilanee's house in Fleet for around 8am and started off (after a quick cuppa and biscuits) by practising a 'circle time' as we would in a school on our trip. We learned from Maureen, the Chair of Ocean Stars Trust and seasoned Sri Lankan tripper, that the main purpose of circle time is to make the children feel comfortable, relax and focus them, and to introduce ourselves to them.  Games that we played may be familiar to some readers from their school days and included Ring 'o' Roses, Duck Duck Goose and 'Bug in the Rug' (where one child closes their eyes and another child goes under a rug in the middle of the circle, and the first child has to guess who is under the rug). The exercise was great fun, although Hugh was dismayed to find that he had difficulty in crossing his legs fully and contemplated starting up yoga before the trip...

After this we practised reading our story book - 'Wow said the Owl' - as we would to a class of children and we discussed how we could use the book as a tool for teaching.




Above: Kathy (L) and Maureen (R) talk through 'wow said the owl'

The next two sessions that we went through were to practise cutting out, and decorating the owl hats that we will be doing with the children (see pictures below of the variety that was produced) and the collages that each school group will be making as a group.




The final sessions we did involved singing some of the songs that we will be doing with the children (hopefully with ukulele accompaniment from Ruth or Stephen) such as Five Little Ducks.

We rounded off the day with a buffet lunch with delicious English and Sri Lankan food and lots of chatting.  We were joined by Dimithri and Dinesh, two Sri Lankan born graduates who started off the  charity... which is looking to collaborate with Ocean Stars in the future.