Adventure School Trips at Cumulus: A Child’s Perspective
June 8th, 2023
Learn more about a residential school trip with Cumulus Outdoors from a child’s perspective. Here we share a typical day at our residential centre in Swanage.
I have just woken up, the sun is peeping through the curtains and I can hear birdsong outside. The other three in my bedroom are still asleep so I sneak into the ensuite bathroom as quietly as I can. Is it nearly breakfast time? The smell of bacon is drifting down from the kitchen and makes my mouth water, so I really hope it is!
Finally, everybody is awake and we quickly get dressed. While we wait for our breakfast sitting we are playing football on the grass pitch. I am in goal but I let a ball in because I got too distracted by the great view of Swanage Bay. I didn’t know the sea could be so beautiful! And I can see lovely white cliffs in the distance – I wonder what they are?
Tasty catering
BREAKFAST! The chef has cooked bacon and sausages and we can choose what we want in our baguettes. My friend, Jason, decided to go for a vegetarian sausage, toast, fruit and cereal – that doesn’t look bad either. The staff are really friendly and the food tastes so yummy!
We collect our packed lunches and our lead instructor, David, tells us what we needed to pack for the day. I quickly have to fill up my water bottle and grab my swimming trunks – we are doing raft building today. I am not the best swimmer but David says that’s okay because I can swim 10m and I will be given a buoyancy aid. Phew!
Outdoor adventure activities
We jump into the minibuses, buckle up and after a short journey and a brief walk through the forest we arrive at the lake. We all change into wetsuits and we are all given a buoyancy aid and a helmet. I feel quite warm and really safe. Jason and I are in the same group with 4 others and David says we need to build a raft out of barrels, wooden poles and rope. It’s quite tricky but we have a plan and working as a team we manage it. Mrs Wilden is going to test it for us – so funny! She fell in the lake and we all laughed but she laughed the loudest. After racing the other teams on the rafts (we came first!), drying off and getting back into our own clothes we have lunch at the lake. I have a ham and cheese sandwich, which I chose when we were at school, crisps, an orange and a little chocolate bar. Mmmmm!
Educational attractions
And we are off to our next activity – a visit to famous Corfe Castle! While we are still in the minibus we can see this huge castle ruin appear in front of us – wow! It’s really interesting to learn about the people who lived here. Did you know that Corfe Castle was King John’s favourite castle (the king in Robin Hood)? He once imprisoned 25 French knights in the ‘oubliette’ here and starved them to death! And the toilet was called ‘garde robe’ because people here used the smell in there to get rid of fleas in their clothing. Yuck! Alex, the instructor who showed us around, has lots of pictures and many exciting stories to tell.
From the castle, we walk to Corfe Castle station and catch the steam train back to Swanage. The engine is huge and we can see the fire in the boiler through the open door in the cab. Suddenly, the train let out an enormous woosh sound and lots of steam – it made us all jump!
Fun and games on-site
Dinner was amazing, we had vegetarian or meat balls with pasta and tomato sauce and salad from the salad bar. Dessert was even better though, brownies and ice cream!
Then we have time to grab a coat or jumper to head to the bushcraft area for our camp fire evening activity. We toast marshmallows and David sings lots of funny repeat-after-me-songs like ‘I have a mango’ with us. We laugh, it’s so funny!
After this, I’m ready for bed but Mrs Wilden insists we have a shower. I am all toasty and warm when I crawl into bed. I can’t wait until tomorrow when we will have more awesome adventures!
