Day 11 Tuesday July 30th 2019

Breakfast at 7:00am. There is no omelette available, so we won’t be staying here again! I have to make do with scrambled egg and tomato.

Staff are to leave the hotel at 8:00am. All staff are on the bus on time – except the Tour Manager!!! One member of staff sat on the coach comments, “Well if the tour leader can be loose with his time keeping, why shouldn’t any of us be bothered!” No comment on who said it, but suffice to say Miss Morgans’ name has been crossed off the list of prospective staff for the 2022 Tour!

We travel to All Saints and meet the students at 8:30am. All seem to have had a good night and have settled well with their billets. Here are some of their comments:

James Northey and Tom Barrington – ‘House was mint, lovely people, class party. (*****)’
Eve Andrews and Freya Evans – ‘Really lovely family, fit brother!’

Annie Gegeshidze, Joe Hawkins-Cole and Sam Wells – ‘House was 11 out of 10, good looking brother, gave us loads of food and got a Ben and Jerry’s – overall class hosts.’
Niamh Bradley – ‘ Stunning house, very friendly family, felt at home and made good connections with the whole family.’

Jacob Purcell – ‘Nice house, nice family.’
Chloe Collins – ‘Very big, lovely house. Very friendly family – parents really chatty.’
Casey Williams, Megan Nicholson and Ashleigh Coppin – ‘Massive house with two tennis courts and a pool. Lush family with a playful dog called Fudge.’
Will Thomas – ‘Very nice people, nicest house I’ve ever been in – very kind and helpful family.’
Zac Johns and Charlie Williams – ‘Lovely family, big house, budgie that gets sent to bed and father that loves a ‘Dad’ joke. Likes calling us by our nicknames.
Teigue Williams and Joe Richards – ‘Trip Advisor: House 8 out of 10. Food 8 out of 10. Family 10 out of 10. Fun 100 out of 10.’
Alister Morgan and Olly Freeman – ‘Family are funny and nice, host is such a legend – sister’s a 10, dog’s a 10.’
Natalie Edwards and Nia Hopkins – ‘Really nice people, feel like we’re staying in the White House as the house is so big, 6 bedroom newly built mansion.
Sam Terry, Noah Myerscough and Leon Bevan – ‘Very nice, huge house, own a golf course.’
Ben Cort and Tom Richards – ‘Really fun time – he is sound.’
Seren Howells and Olivia Goodfellow – ‘Best host ever! Mum is class and host is fab.’
Ryan Stagg – ‘Lovely house and very welcoming.’
Ben Lewis – ‘Lovely house, very kind people. They are interested in everything I say.’
Molly Madden and Betsan Gates – ‘Such a nice big house, the family is friendly and comforting.’
Jack Thomas and Charlie Catto – ‘Nice house, banging breakfast, lovely people.’
Alfie Woodcock and Billy Davies – ‘Nice house, friendly family.’
Robyn Williams – ‘Big nice house, very nice people, really good food.’
Reid Davies – ‘Insane house with own cinema.’
Cameron Clayfield and Iwan Jones – ‘Sound and lovely jubbly.’
Fern Evans and Chloe Thomas – ‘Really nice and welcoming, nice flat and cute cats.’

We head to Currumbin animal sanctuary which is about half an hour drive away.

At Currumbin, the group have the opportunity to hold Koalas, snakes and lizards. There are shows with the 5.1 metre crocodile and the birds. There is also the opportunity to feed the kangaroos. This is just simply too much for Miss Morgans, who looks as if she is about to burst with excitement.

We gather for lunch which is a wrap and drink and I ask them what they’d preferred.
For Nia Hopkins, Gavin Williams and Natalie Edwards it was the kangaroos, whereas Brianna Richards and Leah Hyatt enjoyed the Koala bears. Seren Howells’ Koala had given her an extra special experience and left a present in her hands – needless to say, the bird show was her favourite. Miss Morgans enjoyed everything, but was the only one to enjoy holding the snakes. Jack Thomas, Owen Parry and Kian Webb said they enjoyed travelling around on the train most. Alex Hughes was lucky enough to see 3 of the Big 5 – T-Rex, Diplodocus and Velociraptor! Models of which were all on show-What a lucky boy!

During lunch Mr Thomas was the latest to nearly start an international incident. On the table there was a water bottle that was to be used to ‘squirt’ the Ibis that were a nuisance foraging for food. He picked it up and squirted an Ibis – his aim was not too good. He missed the Ibis and hit a young Chinese lad sat quietly eating his lunch on the next table – luckily the young man had thought it had started raining.

We assemble to return to school at 2pm. Tom Barrington is a kind-hearted soul. He has seen some photographs of our group taken holding the variety of animals on show during the day. He sees one of himself and another two of Miss Morgans. He takes them and gives the two to Miss Morgans – she gratefully accepts them. Both are blissfully unaware that they aren’t free and they had been on display so that individuals could decide whether or not to purchase them.
Mr Thomas organises the Donkey of the Day vote.

Leah Hyatt was nominated for not knowing what comes in the middle of something with 7 items.
Natalie Edwards received a double nomination for thinking Ireland was the ‘land down under’ and complaining that she couldn’t be expected to know the colour of the curtains on the stage in the Main Hall because she “doesn’t listen in assembly.’

Mr Thomas was nominated for attempting to ‘assassinate’ the young Chinese lad on the next table with the Ibis control water bottle.

Mrs O’Sullivan was nominated for forgetting to take ‘Kanga’ to the animal sanctuary.
During the U16 game, Raffi Richards had been told by Mr Cullen to “watch the short one” at a kick off. “Which one’s the short one?” he asked. No, the short kick, Raffi!

Mr Cullen had also raised a smile. He left his cases in the lift. When he got out to go to his room-he tried to retrieve them-but too late, his cases were on a journey elsewhere. Not only had he left his suitcase in the lift, but in an effort to find them, he couldn’t navigate the elevator meaning that he had to go from floor 18 back down to ground level before ascending to floor 20! Twenty minutes later he was reunited with them.

When the votes were counted Mrs O’Sullivan had failed to trouble the scorers, Natalie and Leah had one vote a piece, Raffi scrapped seven votes and Mr Cullen twenty two. The rest went to our very own ‘Top Gun’ Mr Thomas, the first person to wear the shirt for the second time.

We returned to All Saints by 2.30pm and thankfully there are no security tags on the misappropriated photographs and the theft of and receiving of stolen goods goes unnoticed.
The staff return to their hotel by 4pm and arrange to go out at 6pm. They spend the evening in a Brazilian restaurant which was basically eat as much meat as you can-it came in a variety of forms and was enjoyed by all. So much so that there was a move to make the 2022 tour one travelling to Brazil and Argentina.

We were back at the hotel by 8pm and with no students to worry about we were all in bed shortly afterwards!