Trekker Award reflections

 The trekker award marked another milestone in my Venturing journey. Step by step we slowly attain higher standards in scouting and continue to push ourselves. My favourite component in this journey has to be the GPS exploration. In order to embark on the 60km hike one had to have attended and successfully passed the GPS course. The course was split into 2 parts the theory phase as well as the practical component. 

In the theory phase, we were asked to meet at Chung Cheng Main. There we learnt about basic orienteering skills. Triangulation, 4-8 digit grid reference and even the different ways to navigate using different compasses. We were given the garmin satellite gps's and asked to navigate around the boundaries of the campus. I even learnt that different satellites existed for the GPS to connect to. Different satellites were owned by different countries and thus worked differently. After phase, we then moved on to go to Zheng Hua nature park where we were tasked to find different checkpoints. 

In phase2, we met near the park and practised the triangulation and other bearing related exercises. Then we split up into pairs and went to the park where we had to find a "giant hole in the ground". The hole was so big that we could fit a car inside. I was one of the first to successfully finish the activity. After that the instructor taught us how to look for trails in the ground. We found animal footprints. Wild boar, dog prints, cat prints and even otter paw prints. We learnt how the depth of the print also shows the type of animal it is.

Overall the trekker award was really eye opening as it required me to reflect a lot about myself and what I wanted to do in the future.