From Friday 15th to Sunday 17th October, the First Form went on camp to Kilvrough in Wales.
To cover the events of the weekend, we asked three First Form students to tell us a bit about what they did on each day of the trip:
Friday – Poppy
The day we left was a day with mixed emotions, some people had never been away from their parents before and felt a bit worried, but some of us were very excited. Eventually, 1st Form was all ready to leave. We all had our bags on the coach and we were sitting ready for the exciting, tiring and extremely long bus ride ahead of us. When we finally arrived in Wales after what felt like days of siting on the bus, we had made it to Kilvrough. We had such a wonderful welcome from the team at Kilvrough. The next thing we did that day was seeing our rooms. We did a bit of unpacking which was then followed by a fire alarm practice. Shortly after, we had dinner. Everyone devoured their curry and rice down so quickly as we were all very hungry. I really enjoyed the apple crumble we had for dessert. That evening, everyone, including the teachers, came for an evening walk. The instructors then told us a bit about what we were going to do the following few days. When we arrived back at the manor everyone went to bed to get some rest for the exciting days that were yet to come.
Saturday – Anna
On Saturday, after a hasty breakfast and a very early start, we were organised into our activity groups. We were then told about the day’s activities. Mine was surfing and the other groups was climbing. We got kitted out into our wetsuits and got in the minivan to travel to the beach. We arrived at the popular surfing hotspot, Llangenith, and took the surfboards down to the beach. Once there, we had a quick tutorial from one of our instructors, Alex, on how to use, and stand up correctly on, a surfboard. We paired up and took turns using the boards. At around 12:30 we had our lunch break, then it was straight back into the water where we surfed until about 3:30. As we traipsed back to the minivan there were a lot of tired faces visible, so a hot shower and dinner came as a warm welcome.
Our evening activity was orienteering, it was a bit spooky in the dark, but fun. I don’t think anyone quite believed tomorrow was our last day, it had gone fast but was an amazing experience.
Sunday – Siegfried
On Sunday of the camping trip, the groups that had done climbing (my group) and the group that had done surfing swapped around.
After breakfast my group went to Caswell Bay Beach where we went surfing. The first couple of hours flew by, then we had a small break where we got really hot Ribena which warmed everybody up. It was only until the second half when we got better waves and with that, better surfs. Most people in the group managed to stand up. I not only managed to stand up but even learnt how to turn the board to avoid ramming into people.
When we got back to the manor, everybody had a shower, and packed up to go.
As we waited to leave most people started eating their sandwiches (myself included). Then we started our journey home. Although the bus ride took 4 hours and 15 minutes, we all started singing songs so the time flew by.
Once we had gone a fair amount into England, we stopped at a service station in Gloucestershire. Everybody got either chocolate or sweets. I got one tube of fruit pastilles, but someone got ten chocolate bars and a packet of gum! Once we got back to Bloxham we met our parents and we got to stretch our feet a little before heading home.
It was a really fun trip and an amazing experience.
To view the photos from the trip, Click Here
