Trips and Expeditions
Miss Sarah Wood
T he first expedition at the end of the last academic year was the VCDC trip to the Pyrenees where College cyclists watched several stages of the 2013 Tour de France and did some road riding around the classic terrain made famous by the great race. This was just the first of many sports trips this year: Middle School boys spent a week in Hungary, one of the world’s strongest water polo playing countries; the 1st XI finished their cricket season in style with a comprehensive winning tour to the West Indies; and on the water there was the annual OA sailing week on the Solent and the rowing camp in Amsterdam. Younger boys improved their skiing in Geilo and the senior skiers competed in the Canada cup before the British Schools International Races in Hasliberg. The U15 footballers prepared for their season in Barcelona and the U11 and 1st XV rugby players had a most successful season on the back of their training tours. For the adventurous, the summer started with DCMC embarking on their first overseas expedition to the high Pyrenees where there was trekking, rock-climbing and canyoning. Other adventurers had huge fun at Scouts or CCF camps and other boys completed their silver Duke of Edinburgh assessed expedition. The well-established CCF contingency continued to have a busy year, with the usual camps away, but last Easter a number took in the Junior Leaders course in Norfolk and 16 ventured to the frozen north, going 300 miles north of Stockholm for an Arctic survival challenge. Challenges included cross-country skiing, dog sledding and digging and sleeping in ice holes. The Scouts have had their regular fun weekends away and at Easter they spent a week in the Welsh village of Rhyd Ddu at the foot of Mount Snowdon in the Snowdonia National Park improving their trekking, navigation and survival skills. It was not just the Scouts, though, that were regular visitors to Broadstone Warren during the year with ever-increasing numbers of Year 10 boys abandoning their creature comforts for days camping as part of their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh. The Gold Duke of Edinburgh
boys have been trekking, too, and their assessed expedition at Easter was a rather wet (but not miserable) few days walking the valleys of Eskdale and Langdale and through Coniston. A huge number of language trips have taken place this year, with Lower School boys enjoying the German Christmas markets in Aachen and practising their French both whilst based in Vic-sur-Cère and on a day trip to Boulogne. Middle School boys have improved their Spanish in Mallorca and Salamanca, their Italian in the stunning city of Florence, their French in Montpellier and their German in Cologne. Upper School boys have profited from language lessons and exposure to the local culture in a wide range of cities with trips to Verona, Paris, Berlin, Montpellier, Pamplona and Valencia. Middle and Upper School boys have also taken part in exchanges to Tübingen and to Versailles, the latter under the aegis of the Shackleton Exchange programme. It hasn’t just been the linguists exploring the European cities: there was a Religion and Theology trip to Rome, a Design and Technology trip to Prague, a music tour to Paris and Chartres, a Classics trip to Sicily, a History trip to Vienna and Budapest and two trips to CERN for the Physicists. It has not been necessary always to go abroad, though, and an English reading week took place in the Lake District with the houses and landscape of Wordsworth being explored. Upper School historians looked at London in a new light after spending a week visiting Hughenden Manor, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Imperial War Museum, Kew National Archives, the bomber command memorial and the Cabinet War Rooms. There were also the usual Geography and Biology field trips. The College’s extensive links with Asia were maintained this Easter with 24 Middle School boys going to Beijing then Xi’an, China’s ancient capital. They had the chance to visit Dulwich College Beijing and the links will be further strengthened with a musical and sporting Olympiad next year in Beijing in April 2015 with all the International schools. This is amongst an already busy and exciting number of trips planned for the College students next year.
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