Only three out of twelve of us had been to Balloch before so this was going to be a new experience for most of us. The journey is also quite long so we were going to have to leave school a bit earlier than usual.

We looked up timetables online for trains – some of us managed to work it out ourselves and others needed a bit of help.

First we had to walk to the subway station on Shields Road and take the subway to Partick in the west end of Glasgow. From there, we had to wait for the train to Balloch. We wrote about our journey in notepads and planned to take photos with an iPad for this blog.

Things that we did and learned:

• Mr McCormack and Mr Orr taught us about drinking water from streams – always make sure the water is moving. We could see the difference between the clean water in the stream (burn) and the stagnant water which was dirty.
• We learned the words “stagnant” which means not moving and the Scottish word “burn” which is a little steam.
• We wanted to feed the ducks and swans bread so had to buy some from the shop. Lots of us had never fed ducks before. We learnt about the type of ducks (mallards) and that the male is green and the female is brown. We also learned that baby swans are called signets.
• We learned how to be safe around water, never to lean too close or carry anything too heavy.
• Some of us expected Balloch to look different.
• We enjoyed playing in the park.
• If we were going back we would go for longer so that we could fit in more activities like fishing. We thought the journey was quite long so it would be worth staying longer at Balloch next time.
• Some of us didn’t enjoy walking so much!
• We can now explain to people how to get to Balloch if they don’t want to drive.