Last night’s room inspections were quite successful, and so packing bags and tidying rooms this morning was quite a painless task this morning. Mr. Rooney set the Sock and Underpants Challenge: something is always left behind on a residential trip, and it is usually a solitary sock and a pair of underpants or knickers. Without fail. Sadly, the challenge was failed – the sock and underpants were indeed left behind. What is amazing is that no one ever recognises them! If your child is missing either, please contact Mr. Rooney!
A leisurely breakfast, and then a lesson on a local famous explorer: Captain James Cook, who was a Whitby lad. Cook was a British naval captain, navigator, and explorer who sailed the seaways and coasts of Canada (1759 and 1763–67) and conducted three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean (1768–71, 1772–75, and1776–79), ranging from the Antarctic ice fields to the Bering Strait and from the coasts of North America to Australia and New Zealand (with thanks to Britannica.com for the extra information, although Mr. Rooney gave us all this after breakfast). So our morning destination was Whitby, to see him.
Of course, packing the bags was easy – getting them back up the hill to the car park not so! Like a stream of Sherpas lugging packs up Everest in support of Hillary, our children battled their way to the summit car park, where the next challenge was fitting them all in the vehicles! Mission accomplished, but of course with everyone carrying their luggage we realised we’d left our packed lunches back down at base camp in the hostel! Florence and Olivia duly accompanied Mr. Suter back down to collect them, in return for first pick of crisp and biscuit flavours!
The sun deserted us a little this morning, so Whitby itself was a little chilly – even more so for those who hadn’t followed instructions to layer up! After looking at Cook’s statue, and posing under Whitby’s famous whalebone arch (a sign of it’s historical past) we walked down towards the beach but first: THE most anticipated event of the week: the trip to the gift shop. The children were a little bemused to see the shopkeeper dancing a jig of delight after Mrs. Tunney has asked him if she could bring in 34 children to spend oodles of money, but quickly lightened their wallets with their purchases. The shopkeeper was seen putting up a ‘store closed’ sign and packing a suitcase as we made our way to the beach for the Whitby Marathon – the open chase down to the shoreline, which Albie won at a canter.
Back up to the top, and it was lunchtime. As soon as the sandwiches came out, so did the birds, Hitchcock style – huge, fearless seagulls, seeking an easy meal. Albie and Annie worked as principle bird scarers, as everyone else munched their lunches from inside their jackets!
A quick stop then at Whitby’s Bombardment Garden, the recreated ruins of a house designed to memorialise a World War I shelling on the town. In 1914, Whitby came under attack just after 9 a.m. on the morning of December 16th when two enemy battle cruisers, weighing 25,000 tons each, emerged from the mist. This was known as the Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby. The ships unloaded close to 100 shells onto the small and historic fishing town. The 11-inch shells fired from the warships caused massive structural damages and destroyed homes. Amazingly, only two people died as a result of the attack.
And then back to the buses, and back to school, and as ever all good things come to an end. But what a fantastic week, and what an amazing experience for our children, who did themselves and the school proud! Early nights all round now!
I thought the surf and turf was fun and the food was excellent and the room’s were comfortable. My favourite activity was surfing because it was hard but I like doing new things. I loved the seaside because it was cold but fun to jump around in, the experience was brilliant and I would go again.
Albie Fleming
Prep VI
I really liked the food and the activities we and I hope that we’ll do it again some day
Zion OW
going to surf and turf was amazing my I especially enjoyed playing football and rounders with my friends. The food was nice and the rooms were too. The activity I liked the best was surfing even though I fell off every time I stud up. I would definitely go there again it was so fun. Thank you Bridgewater staff for setting this up for us.
Christian Hook
It was interesting to learn about Captain Cook and how he discovered lots of islands,this including Hawaii, Australia, Christmas Island,Easter Island and many more. My parents gave me some money and got 3 pence change*.It was an amazing trip,but exhausting. Stuck to the bed!
Have a nice day-Tanisha.J,Prep 6 🙂
This is one of the best trips I have been on! The area that the hostel was surrounded by was beautiful. The food was delightful and having the little beach just outside was the perfect way to spend an evening! Also the beds were very comfortable and I had a lovely view of the bay.
The highlight for me was definitely the surfing. It was great to try something new…even though I fell off the board a lot and stank of seawater at the end! I was very proud of myself though since I was able to stand up on the board for a bit eventually!
On the last day I was a little disappointed we had to go home so soon, but we certainly made the most of it! When we were eating our lunch I was quite anxious that the seagulls were going to steal my sandwich, especially when they kept swooping over our heads very close! I had a nice relaxed journey back and it was really lovely to see my family again.
I am very grateful to all the teachers and staff who made the effort to organise and prepare this wonderful trip for us and I would certainly go back again! 🙂
Beatrice Prep 6
I really enjoyed the Surf and Turf trip because I did lots of things and went to lots of different places I had never been to before. The hostel was really nice, and the rooms and the facilities were also very nice, and where the hostel was there was a really nice view of the beach and it looked amazing. I also enjoyed doing surfing because I had never done it before and it was a really good experience. Playing against that other school was nice because the students there were really kind and friendly and they didn’t mind if they lost or won.
Alex.C Prep 6
A fabulous trip which rates as one of the best that I have been on and there have been over 30! Huge thanks to Mr Suter, Mrs Tunney and Mrs Rooney for their energy, good humour, professionalism and patience. These trips would not happen without staff giving up their time to attend such trips. Teachers are literally on duty 24 hours a day for 3 days. The last child went to sleep at 1 am and the first rose just after 5 am. The joys! A huge con=gratulations to the children who behaved impeccably and were good fun. I was very proud of them all.
Surf and Turf was a brilliant experience for me because I spent time with many people I didn’t really know but overall it was amazing the hostile we visited was so beautiful it was on the front of the beach and it was lovely just to listen to the ocean during the evening the food was beautiful and the people they were so kind my favourite bit of this trip was the surfing it was hard at first but was so much fun when I got the hang of it what made me laugh was when I kept getting wiped out
THANK YOU
Olly P6
Great that you enjoyed it Olly – but don’t forget your punctuation! And no more sweets… Mr. S
Olly I would not eat any sweets for a few days
Ben Simmons