Over Half Term, a group of seventy pupils and members of staff headed off to Austria for a fantastic week of skiing. Thank you so much to Charlotte for sharing her thoughts on the trip.
On Friday 10th February at 7:45am we set off on our 24 hour bus journey to Radstadt. The trip was long and exhausting, but we pushed through, playing many games and experiencing the excitement of eating at a German McDonalds! We eventually got to Radstadt, and after we had settled in at the hotel we were off to the Ski hire and getting on the slopes.
On the first day, we were all a little rusty so began on the baby slope, which led to some entertaining accidents. After this we split into groups based on our skill level, ready for the days to come. In the afternoons, we did a plethora of activities, including some days just going to the Hoffer (Aldi) down the road or going into town, going to a disco, on a very entertaining toboggan run down the mountain and going to a waterpark. This filled our afternoons with fun activities after skiing which meant we were very tired by the evening! Every night, awards were given for multiple reasons, one being fail of the day.
We had a three-course dinner in the hotel each evening and we all got to experience some very interesting Austrian traditional food like ‘pancake soup.’ The food went down very quickly after a long day on the slopes. We had the opportunity to make our lunch everyday, but many decided to dine in some of the lovely mountain restaurants.
Each day we split into our groups again and met up with our instructors, who were all wonderful and very helpful in improving our ski technique, catering to the needs of everyone from beginners to the advanced group. They made our experience so enjoyable as we got to explore different ski resorts in the surrounding area which meant more variety day to day.
On the third day, a few groups set off to Zauchensee where we got to experience a new location and some brilliant runs including the Women’s Downhill. Another resort we all headed to was Flacheau which had an incredible snow park. This led to the advanced groups trying new tricks which provided a lot of entertainment for the instructors. We also got the chance to watch some very impressive skiers take flight over enormous jumps.
We were very lucky with the sun shining the majority of the trip, which led a few to try out t-shirt skiing, resulting in some questionable tan lines. The snow was brilliant all week which really led to an amazing trip.
Thank you very much to all the teachers who took us and who made the whole trip thoroughly enjoyable.