Welcome to the Outward Bound gallery – photographs and videos of programmes in action across the country: hiking, canoeing, abseiling, team challenges, camps and journeys. Every picture here is a real Outward Bound group, from school grade camps and leadership programmes to funded youth programmes and our holiday adventure camps.
Outward Bound South Africa has run programmes since 1992 and is a member of Outward Bound International. Jump to Photos or Videos, then explore our programmes.
Groups carry what they need and move on foot, making camp somewhere new each night. Hiking, navigation, rock climbing, abseiling and high ropes, with instructors close by for safety and a step back from the decisions.
On the trail, participants take turns to lead: reading the map, setting the pace and making the calls about water, rest stops and route. On the rock and the high ropes, they learn to trust their belayer and their own judgement. The photos in this part of the Outward Bound gallery come from our mountain, forest and coastal routes, where the terrain does the teaching.
Canoeing, sea kayaking, raft building and rafting, from the Orange and Vaal rivers to Sterkfontein Dam and the Garden Route coast. Crews learn quickly that a boat only moves when everyone pulls together.
Many courses start on the lagoon at Willow Point in Sedgefield, our home base, where groups build rafts from drums, poles and rope and then have to paddle them. Life jackets and helmets are worn on every water activity, and instructors run each session from the water with the group.
Water days are some of the most photographed moments on any course, and some of the most talked about in the debrief afterwards. A capsize, a crew that finally paddles in a straight line, or a quiet participant who ends up steering the raft home all become stories the group carries back to school, to work and to their community.
Camp is where the day gets processed. Groups pitch tents, cook together and share the chores, and every evening ends with a debrief where the group works through what happened, what they learned and how it applies back home. These photos show the quieter side of an Outward Bound course: team challenges on the field, the Berlin wall and log carries, briefings before a raft build, and long trails through forest and fynbos.
Nobody is forced to attempt anything they are not comfortable with, and instructors stay close for safety while stepping back from the decisions. The point is never the cliff or the river. The point is the discovery that participants are capable of far more than they believed.
The groups in this Outward Bound gallery include school grades on leadership journeys, young people on funded community programmes, bursary cohorts, corporate teams and teenagers on our December Summer Adventure Camp. What they share is the same shape of course: arrive on base, meet the instructors and the group, collect gear and food, and head out into real country for anything from a few days to a full expedition.
Every course ends with a debrief and, for longer programmes, a report for the school, funder or partner. If you would like your group to be in the next set of photos, see our school camps and courses, our Summer Adventure Camp, or get in touch through the contact page to plan a programme around your goals.
Short films from our programmes – school groups, funded youth programmes and the activities that run through every journey. More videos are on our Vimeo channel.
