My trip to Condover Hall
On Wednesday 12th June, I left for a school trip to Condover Hall, Shropshire. This was my second residential after going to Standon Bowers in Year 4. I loved Standon Bowers, but this was a whole new experience. But time flies when you’re having fun, and three days felt very quick. So, now maybe I could relive my last ever primary school trip by writing.
I started packing a few days before, but then me and my mum finished packing the day before the trip. It was quite annoying as I kept forgetting to put my name on the clothes. My mum somehow manged to fit my sleeping bag and pillow in as well as the clothes in my suitcase!
As I said bye to my mum, we were in school by 8.30 and I put my suitcase in the hall. Excitement was bursting inside of me! We had normal lessons in the morning and had an early lunch at 11.30, when I had some delicious pasta that my mum made me. At around 12.30 I sat down on the coach next to my good friend Arjun. During the two-hour-long journey, we played Marvel and Minecraft TOP TRUMPS and an emoji phrase card game that Dylan had.
When I arrived, I was stunned to see a huge mansion, which was Condover Hall. At first, I thought we would be sleeping there, but we had separate dorms. I was lucky to have a dorm with only 4 people. It even had an en suite and a shower. I was in a bunk bed with Arjun, and in the other one was Austin and Daiwik, two of my friends.
One the first day, I did abseiling and a campfire. I have to admit I wasn’t very good at abseiling (I was a bit scared and kept crashing into the wall). We had quite a nice dinner of Tandoori chicken, rice, pitta bread and mixed vegetables. We even had a dessert of chocolate ice cream! After that, we did a campfire, sung ‘David Hasselhoff running down the beach’ and made our own smores! Back in our dorms, I washed myself off in the shower. We finished off the brilliant day by telling funny stories in our dorm in the night.
The next morning, everyone was in a good (silly) mood. Me, my friends, and the others were knocking on each other’s doors – like ding dong ditching – and inevitably, we got told off. We had the latest breakfast spot, so we had some time to kill. It was hilarious when each of us were taking number twos in the toilet and Arjun had to keep using his deodorant (he was scared that the fire alarm would go off, though). We had a brilliant English Breakfast and set off for the day’s activities. We started off with the Gladiator wall, a tall wall with a mixture of logs, ropes, nets, and tyres. If you got to the top, you would say “I’m a Gladiator, hear me roar!” Unfortunately, I could not get to the top, but got quite close. I didn’t think that I would even get midway, though, as I was stuck on the second step but then got past it. Jumping down was fun, since we had a harness attached, and it felt like I was flying! We went straight to raft building after that (this was my favourite activity of the trip). In groups, we had six, large plastic cans 2 cylindrical logs and some rope. We had to make a raft out of it. The more fun part was when we got into the small lake. My clothes were drenched, not mentioning my shoes. The shallow end was about hip deep, and the deeper parts were... who knows! We had oars and life – vests and paddled through to the float. The boat was bobbing a lot and all the people who were scared and didn’t want to get wet changed boats on to the mega raft, which was safer. I didn’t though! And as my friend Arnav slipped off, and somehow, I managed to catch him before he fell (I’m not lying). After the exhilarating activity, the people who didn’t want to get wet went back to their dorms. We stayed in the hip – deep end, locked arms and we all fell backwards. We all had a splash after that. Freezing, I ran back to my dorm and had a nice, warm, shower.
For lunch, we had sausages, Yorkshire pudding, peas, and gravy – it was scrumptious! We even had jam doughnuts to finish off!
We made our way to archery after lunch, where it was spitting down and we were using metal, sharp arrows. On my first set, I hit the white, missed completely, and… missed completely. I was quite disappointed after that but then I got to try again and this time I hit the bullseye! Want some advice? Okay! Here’s some… just hit bullseye! Sounds simple enough, right? Since we had some time to kill after archery, the teachers allowed us to go in each other’s dorms and I played mega hide and seek with my friends.
We did rock climbing after, and once again, I did not make it to the top (I’m not good at this sort of stuff). One of the instructors was a Chelsea fan, and for once, I was not teased as a Man United fan, because the Chelsea fan was the target. Since I mentioned them, I should now talk about the instructors. They always kept us safe, motivated us. Yes, they did do those things, but they were really fun to talk to, and always kept every moment lively. They were so funny, and always made us laugh. Our group instructor, Morgan, promised that if anyone hits bullseye in archery, they get sweets, and if more than one person hits bullseye, they win the whole group a big bag of sweets. Since me and Chloe hit the target, our group won a bag of sour skittles. YUM!
We did Mini Olympics next, but not for long, as we soon started playing huge games of bulldog and SPLAT! After my friends got out, they were cheering me on whenever I splatted someone. I ended up getting around 7th out of around 84 people.
The teachers then told us that we had the earliest breakfast spot the next day – 7.00am! Everyone groaned. We still told each other stories, but had to sleep, as the teachers kept coming in our dorms and telling us off.
We were woken up by one of our teachers, Miss Knock, quite harshly. By that, I mean quite loudly very loudly. I then had some breakfast of beans on toast, and a pancake. Now I think of it, I had orange juice with every meal apart from the last one, where everyone had to have sandwiches, crisps, an apple, and biscuits, since we would be travelling.
It was our last day and we were supposed to be having two activities on the final day, but guess what? We only had one due to… British weather. But the one we did, was fun, and scary. It was the aerial trek. With a harness attached to us, we did a obstacle course which was quite high off the ground. But soon, I figured out that I could just sit down and pull myself along.
That was it. After we had lunch, we sat on the coach and said bye to the instructors, and my friend/ 3-day roommate Daiwik. That was his last day at Greswold, and I’m sure he’ll look back at this trip as a way to remember this school.
This time, on the way back, there were rows of 3 seats. I sat with Arjun and Dylan, two of my great friends. As well as playing with Dylan’s card games, we played with Dylan’s big Squish mallow, and he kept losing it under the seat!
Overall, I absolutely adored this trip, and would love to come back. From the activities to the playtimes, to the meals and chats, and just overall the time we had! Those three days will be with me for a long, long time. This will be one of my last, and certainly one of the best memories of Greswold. Thank you to all the teachers as well, who organised this trip – and I will say this again – I absolutely adored it!