A Journal by Aditya Wibowo Cambridge, April 18th 2017 // After being surprised for my birthday with all of those mixed feelings (story in my last post) we took 2 hours bus ride to Cambridge for today's activity. Today we had an experiential learning of Punting. Punt is basically a flat-bottomed boat, similar to the one used in Venice, Italy, i guess? Back at home, way before going to London, i did a research on this Punting activity. Based on what the research i've done, it showed that we will only need to sit back and enjoy the ride while the punter drive us along the cam river while we do sightseeing. But turned out, it's not what we did today. Instead of hiring a punter, we drive it ourself! We are being divided to 5 groups consisting of 4 to 5 people in one boat. // I was very nervous on thinking about riding my own punt. Before we go, the instructor told us what to do with the punt, from how to paddle it, change direction, and what to do if the stick get stuck. After that, the instructor released our boat from the deck and we're free to go! At first, our boats basically collided into one another, because we're still figuring out what to do with the boat, and eventually managed to get out of the tangle. Driving the punt was very difficult, to be honest! The stick was heavy, the weather was cold and windy, also the boat was unstable! Some boats often turned around, changing the direction by itself. Turning the boat into the right direction was more difficult than driving it in normal stream though. We spent up to like 5 minutes just to turn the boat back in track! And it didn't only happened once, it happened a lot haha. // Somehow, our boat turned around and get carried by the stream to the swampy area of the river. Let me tell you, if you think turning the boat in normal stream is already difficult, this one is WAY MORE difficult, we managed to get out though thank god! But when we got out, other boat has been far away basically. My boat only made it to the second bridge, when we realized that the time was almost up so we have to turned back around. We made joke on how we got in last but get back first. We were leading the way, until the other group managed to passed us out, surprisingly, they were good. At the end, we arrived back in deck on second place. // In my opinion punting is like learning how to ride a bike as when you were a kid. It was hard at first, but it makes you eager to do it more and more. I'm really looking forward to punt again, but perhaps in a warmer and cozier weather?? Haha.