Holland Trip

On Monday 24th October, 29 Year 8 and 9 Girls set off for Valkenburg, Netherlands, for a Hockey and Netball tour. Mr Martin shared his report of the trip…

Monday

 We left WGS at 2:30am and arrived at our hotel at 5pm local time After unloading the coach, it was time for our evening meal, followed by a wonderful trip to a local pancake house. We returned to the hotel at 10pm, unpacked and ready for a 6am get-up the following morning.

Tuesday

We had breakfast at 7am, then journeyed straight to our morning Hockey coaching session with the Masterclass tour coaches. Afterwards, we ventured to our incredibly competitive morning excursion of laser tag in the caves of Valkenburg, before heading back to the hotel for a hot lunch. 

From there, it was straight out for ten-pin bowling and then back to the hotel to change and prepare for our first competitive fixture of the tour. We made the 90-minute trip to Horst Hockey club, where unfortunately both the A and B teams were outclassed by the local Dutch side at their incredible facilities. However, we were treated to their superb hospitality post-match. 

Our daily awards which went to:

Lexie - B Team player of the match

Fi - A team player of the match

Maisie - Moment of the day for a spectacular fall in the hockey match

Mia - Outstanding person of the day

Wednesday

Another action-packed day with 8am breakfast and a trip to the Netball facility for a bumper 5 hours of training and coaching in preparation for the big end-of-tour tournament. From here it was straight back to the hotel to change for our evening hockey fixtures against Peel en Mass Hockey club and Sjinborn Hockey Club. Unfortunately, we faced another two defeats, but witnessed two fantastic goals by Zara Patel, sparking wild celebrations amongst the A team. Once again, the hospitality received from both clubs was superb.

Our daily awards went to:

Daya - B Team player of the match

Kylie- A team player of the match

Zara - Our first ever WGS goal in Holland!

Lucie - Outstanding person of the day

Thursday

Yet another jam-packed day which saw our two morning excursions of mini golf and tobogganing. From here it was a swift walk back to the hotel to change for the Netball tournament which saw the A team finish second and Gabbi and Rebecca voted players of the tournament in their respective pools and teams. 

We eventually had enough time for a brief tour of the town of Valkenburg, where the group were able to do a spot of shopping before getting our glad rags on for the end-of-tour disco.

Our daily awards went to:

Tapiwa - C Team player of the match

Olivia - B Team player of the match

Fi - A team player of the match

Toni - Moment of the day for a spectacular fall in the Netball match (Plus a special award presented by the girls to Mr Martin after he crashed his toboggan, something almost impossible to do).

Karmen - Outstanding person of the day

Friday

A 6am get up and 7am checkout followed as we made our departure after an action-packed and enjoyable week. Unfortunately, the M25 was not kind to us as it took 7 hours to get back from Dover, but the less said about the UK traffic the better!