On Friday 12th June, at approximately 4:20am, the Y7's who have been learning French this year trudged onto one of the two coaches parked in the bus bays. The main aim of this trip was for us to practise our French, as well as seeing what France is like. When we were all on the coach we were given a booklet, which contained questions that we would find the answers to throughout the day, we were also given Wallingford School wristbands in case we got lost.

As the journey to Dover was going to take at least three hours, some people took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep while others chose to chat. Everyone who was awake seemed very excited, perhaps because some of us had never been to France, been on a ferry or perhaps just something as simple as spending a whole day with their friends. About half way there, we stopped at a service station in order to get some fresh air and eat our second breakfast!

Finally, we arrived in Dover, where we saw many other vehicles queuing to get onto a ferry. What felt like quite a while later, the coaches started slowly moving forward onto a bridge, which was attached to the ferry. Once we had boarded the ferry (at about 8:15am), we were told to make our way up some very steep steps and follow our group leader. We were then allowed to have a wander around the ferry in groups of three for the next hour.

The boat transporting us to France was managed by P & O Ferries. It was called the Pride of Kent. 8:25am, was the approximate time that the Pride of Kent departed the Port of Dover, headed for Calais. There were many places to explore on the very crowded ferry: shops, cafés, the deck and quite a lot of other places. We came across a lot of other children who were also on a school trip.

On arriving at the Hypermarket, which was absolutely massive, our group leaders told us a time at which we should meet them, then we set off to do some shopping and to use our French. Situated in the Hypermarket was a humongous supermarket and many small shops. Whilst doing our shopping, we noticed that the majority of items were a lot cheaper in France than they are in England. Many very different and interesting products were bought.

Next, we piled ourselves back onto the coaches with our new purchases and set off for Boulogne itself. Boulogne was boiling! Our first activity was to fill in the answers for a couple of questions in our booklets. Because we were all starving, we made our way up onto the ramparts to eat our lunch, from which we got amazing views of small towns located on hills in the distance.

Afterwards, we continued our walk along the ramparts, we were almost the same height as the trees; by looking over the walls we could see some tennis courts surrounded by trees, a maze and many cobbled streets. Soon we approached the main castle, which was built by Count Philippe Hurepel and completed in 1234. There were many windows in the circular courtyard of the castle, too many to count!

Our time in Boulogne flew past and soon it was time to leave. On our way back to the coaches, we saw the cathedral. We also bought souvenirs and ice creams (which involved us speaking a bit of French) from a street full of shops. As it had been so hot all day we had been longing for some respite and just as we were getting on the coaches it started to rain!

When we arrived at the port, unlike last time, we had to go through border control which took quite a while; we were then stuck in a queue to get onto the ferry, again. We embarked at about 6:45pm in French time. It was raining a lot whilst we were on the ferry, meaning the windows started to steam up. However, we sill got to have a glimpse of the white cliffs of Dover. On the way back to school, most people were exhausted due to the fact that we had had to wake up incredibly early, so the coaches were reasonably quiet.

All our parents were standing by the bus bays waiting for us to return. We finally arrived back at school at about 10:15pm, only 45 minutes later than expected – not bad. We shuffled off the coaches, taking all our belongings with us. Our day in Boulogne was a great experience, a fun, but tiring day out and we all really enjoyed it!

- Martha, Year 7