We arrived at school early on a crisp Sunday morning towing behind us our supposedly ‘small holdalls’. We had high expectations for this trip. Teachers and older years had set our hopes high and as we waved goodbye we wondered if the trip could live up to the stories.

After two and a half hours on the coach we finally arrived at Bath. We walked through the town, taking in the beautiful buildings around us. Our first destination was of course the Roman Baths. We met a Roman priest, looked at the sculptures and tried the water. Our next stop was the Fashion Museum where we couldn’t resist trying on the corsets and skirts. When we arrived at the youth hostel, (having just climbed up a hill), we were exhausted. After dinner Mrs Hoyes arranged games for us to play, including pass the parcel. With Mr Hoyes providing the music, ‘Our Lady of Providence’, we had a very fun evening!

Monday was our first chance to see Bristol. It was an extremely busy day, as you would have been able to tell by the lack of energy we all had on the journey back. First we split up into two groups and went to the Slave museum or on a tour of Bristol by Mr Hawkins. The Slave museum, breaking the chains, was fascinating. It gave us all a real insight into the horrors of slave trading, the conditions of the travel and the abuse when they got to their masters. The tour was excellent; we visited various attractions, possibly the most exciting one being the spectacularly stunning Bristol Church. We all thoroughly enjoyed the walk around, especially with the weather being as stunning as it was. Then we headed for the waterfront where we had a picnic and despite the rather cold weather had an ice-cream! We then explored the SS Great Britain, which was a brilliant afternoon, had all extremes of emotions. First the excitement of what felt like going underwater as you climbed down stairs and went below the water feature that surrounded the ship. Then, as we explored the ship we were spooked by the models that we placed in the ship for authenticity. They really were not that scary, but when you feel a little isolated in a creaky ship and you come round the corner to see a wax model there it does scare you!!! After calming down from the fright, we headed back and got ourselves pampered in true girlie style to head out to the theatre. The performance Life and Beth was pretty good, but by far the best thing was turning around to see all our teachers fast asleep, we obviously tired them out more than we realised!!!

We woke reasonably early on Tuesday morning and were taken off into Bath. Our first stop today was the Jane Austen museum. Here we were given an interesting talk about Jane’s life in Bath and got to see some outfits and other pieces from the period. In the afternoon we went to ‘@ Bristol’ a science museum that was the perfect excuse for us all to mess around and become little children again. We went inside a womb, saw the stars in the planetarium and took a reaction test among many other exhibitions. For our final meal that night we went to Pizza Hut. We had a lovely evening of chatting to friends and eating pizza. Getting back up the hill that night however was a bit of a struggle as we learnt that heels and rain do not mix well

Wednesday was sadly our last day in Bath and Bristol, but it certainly wasn’t our least exciting! We paid a visit to the Bath Abbey, a beautiful building in the centre of quite frankly the already beautiful city of Bath. We spent a fair while in the Abbey, admiring the shear beauty of the magnificent abbey and its wonderful vaults. Next, we were given some free time around Bath. Being girls, we spent most of this having some retail therapy and sitting around in the sun with a milkshake, or in some cases Vitamin drinks! Sadly, then it was time to leave Bath and head back to school. But even that wasn’t boring, those in the minibus were lucky enough to be taken, by Mr Hawkins (who knows the area very well) on a bit of a de-tour meaning we could see various landmarks including the Severn Bridge.

Freya and Ciara, IV Form