Adventure, Grit and Growth: Abbot’s Hill Students and Staff Take on Borneo
Sixteen days. One remote longhouse community. Countless leeches, cockerels and unforgettable memories. 12 of our senior students and two members of staff have returned from an extraordinary World Challenge expedition to Sarawak, Borneo, with tales to tell and memories to last a lifetime!
From the moment the group split into self-sufficient teams at the airport — managing money, timekeeping, group logistics and food and hygiene between them — this was never going to be a holiday. It was a test of independence, resilience and teamwork, and our students rose to meet it at every turn.
Finding Our Feet in Kuching
The expedition began with orientation in Kuching, where students explored the city, took in a sunset, and later spent a free day visiting a local mosque, where a mosque security guard generously shared the history of Islam in Sarawak. A browse through the local markets and an evening water light show rounded off a gentle introduction to Malaysian Borneo.
Life in the Jungle
Boats carried the group upriver to a rural community for a waterfall trek — and their first taste of life off-grid. Electricity in a single room, mosquito nets, squat toilets and bucket showers became the new normal, alongside a new obsession: Malaysian pineapple, sampled fresh on the trail.
The days that followed brought early starts, refreshing rain on a jungle trek, a chorus of over-enthusiastic cockerels every night, a lesson in the local game of Carrom, and a cooking class using bamboo shoots in place of pots and pans.
Evenings brought bracelet-making with a local resident, learning traditional weaving techniques by hand. Before leaving, each student planted a tree and labelled it with her name — a promise, perhaps, to return one day.
Manual Labour and Iban Hospitality
There was time for celebration too — one student’s birthday was marked with balloons and a palm sugar cake gifted by the community. Students helped reassemble a pepper-drying station near the new longhouse and learned how black pepper, one of the region’s most widely grown crops, is dried and prepared. An afternoon of baking traditional Iban desserts, and later a basket-filling pepper-picking session, gave the group real insight into the rhythms of daily life in the community.
Even the weather couldn’t dampen spirits: when heavy rain and thunder cancelled a planned river hike and picnic, the group simply pressed on with sand sieving and baking instead.
Fire, Fish and a Farewell
On their final full day, the group trekked to the river with community members, cutting bamboo along the way and cooking lunch over an open fire — with locals catching fish by hand to add to the feast. The trek back brought freshly cut coconuts to eat and drink, and the day closed with a sunset walk and a well-earned photoshoot.
Leaving was not easy. The community turned out to shake hands, wave the group off, and pose for a final photograph, before students said goodbye to their guide, Chris, who had accompanied them throughout the initiative.
Orangutans, Culture and Reflection
The final days brought a change of pace: a visit to the Semenggoh Orangutan Sanctuary, where the group was fortunate to spot an orangutan despite fruit season making sightings rare, followed by the Kuching Food Festival. An optional activities day offered a choice between the Fairy Wind Caves — guided by the endlessly knowledgeable JayB — or a local cooking class, before an evening sunset cruise complete with cultural dancing that the girls were delighted to join.
On their final morning, the girls’ careful budgeting throughout the trip meant they could treat themselves to a generous last breakfast, before a visit to the Borneo Cultures Museum. The expedition closed, fittingly, with one last circle time at the airport — a tradition observed throughout the trip to reflect on the highs, lows and everything in between — before phones were returned and the digital detox came to an end.
Coming Home
Landing back at Heathrow marked the end of an expedition that pushed our students well beyond their comfort zones: navigating group finances, sleeping under mosquito nets, digging foundations by hand, and building genuine friendships with a community thousands of miles from home.
World Challenge trips like this one embody exactly what we hope our students take from their time here — independence, empathy, curiosity and the confidence to thrive outside the familiar. We couldn’t be prouder of everyone who took part.
