Year 7 and 8 Colonias: Three nights in Cardona.

Natalie Ribbans

After months of looking forward to it, the day finally arrived! On May 28th, our Year 7 and 8 students set off for the beautiful Cardona with teachers Natalie and Sara for four days and three nights. And what an amazing time we all had! The sun shined every day, and we loved the opportunity to explore, play and spend time together. For a lot of students, this was their first experience of a residential trip, so we were all very excited. Cardona did not disappoint, and a lot of wonderful memories were made.

After settling into our lovely accommodation, we met our monitors for the week, Ferri and Ignasi, and straight away got stuck into some fun team-building games! Later, we all got the chance to learn some archery skills. Not all of us managed to hit the bullseye, but we had fun trying! That night, we played games by torchlight on the beautiful grounds of the Vilar Rural.

The next three days went by so quickly! We hiked to the stunning Cardona Castle, explored the gorgeous town and even did a treasure hunt. It was wonderful to see all of our students working together, especially when they hung out with people they wouldn’t normally spend time with. We saw new friendships form, and old friendships blossom. Sara and I loved the opportunity to have fun with the group, and we certainly all laughed a lot!

Back at the Vilar, we cooled down in the best way, by playing a lot of water games. Mysteriously, the teachers seemed to get the brunt of the water balloons but we weren’t complaining in the hot weather! In the evenings we were also able to use the big swimming pool, and we played some epic games of water volleyball, and even did some aqua dancing!

There are too many more great activities to describe… Quidditch, orienteering, singing competitions and, of course, all the fun of the disco on the last night. We were certainly all exhausted, but very sad to leave. All of the students were fantastic, and we were so incredibly proud of how they all joined in together and made sure everybody was having fun. So, to all the students, we want to say a big THANK YOU! You made the trip so memorable for everyone, and we certainly won’t forget it!

We can’t wait for next year!