John on Tour: The real deal Jungle Run!

Many years ago, CITV's Jungle Run banished my idea of piracy as a future career prospect and planted the idea of becoming an explorer in my impressionable mind. For years I watched dweeby kids getting trapped in tunnels and monkey bellies. I witnessed fools blindly crawling passed obvious and precious silver monkeys. I even saw them fail to complete a four-piece puzzle even with the help of the ruby monkey. I watched on, always thinking it should be me combating those mischievous monkeys Sid an Elvis. Well last week I had a little taste of what it might have been like, except we were running through an actual jungle rather than a studio, and there was no Michael Underwood annoyingly pointing out the obvious fact that I don't have much time left, so I think I win on both fronts.

It was all part of the orientation week for the new Form 1 students who have joined us for this year. It was a week that was designed to bring the boys closer together as they had to overcome various challenges like the obstacle course and me and Hugo's spaghetti bolognese. They tried so hard to be polite, but telling me it was delicious after I watched them eat it holding their nose doesn't really work (I'd like to point out it was actually quite tasty, they just can't hack the herbs).

But the main event was on the weekend. Saturday kicked off with your classic sports day games- sack races, giant slipper races, and eating bananas from a string with no hands. After a brief rest, it was straight down to the jungle obstacle course. This compromised crawling through mud/buffalo turd, climbing across bamboo hovering above mud, slipping through spider webs also placed above pools of mud, then lifting people over a bar from one patch of mud to another. It was quite muddy. It concluded with a challenging jungle trek to the top of the hill, than a triumphant descent back to the river to wash off. It was all very tiring, but the fun was nowhere near over yet. After watching a horror film the previous night, the boys (who all firmly believe in ghosts) had to complete a night walk through the jungle with only a candle lit path to aid them. Some of the boys came armed with their rosaries. Me and Hugo came armed with flour and tomato sauce, the vital ingredients for the jungle vampire look. We found our spots (trying to stay clear of giant ant nests), tucked in behind some shrubs and scared little children for the next three hours. Boys were literally jumping and falling in pure fear. One boy was so scared we came back to attack with me a stick. It was simply hilarious. Personally I couldn't think of a better way to give the new students a warmer welcome.