Amazing Family Adventures: Fun days out and action-packed weekends

 

I have ordered this book from Amazon and I will use to plan some fantastic days out for us! The book begins with easy and approachable adventures perfect for families with younger kids, such as foraging and fossil hunting, and progresses into more challenging adventures, such as wild swimming, surfing and wilderness survival. The adventures range from an afternoon trip to the farm to camping excursions, so can be used for spontaneous half-term day trips or for summer holiday ideas. Each activity comes with suggestions of NT places to visit for the adventure, and the ideas take in woodland, beaches, mountains and parks.

Holiday in Herefordshire

We had a week in the lovely Herefordshire countryside.  In glorious unseasonably hot (where we got burnt as it never occurred to me to pack suncream) we walked in the Brecon Beacons completing the glorious horseshoe ridge walk which including joining the hordes at the top of Pen y Fan.

 We found tadpoles!!!

The next day we went back and did the waterfall walk which we had done a few years ago. It allows you to actually walk behind Sgwd yr Eira which is amazing.

 On my mum's birthday we visited Croft Castle. We went inside the castle which is set up to reflect life there in the middle part of the 20th Century before getting to explore the parkland including the beautiful old oak trees and the bluebells just starting to appear!

 We visited the stunning Tintin abbey

 and the girls enjoyed the junior Go-Ape course in the Forest of Dean. (P said it was the best thing she did this holiday).

The big 3 and the husband vanished to try caving at the near by Clearwell Caves, but as P is too young we stayed and explored the Forest of Dean where we walked the Sculpture Trail (which I remember walking with my dad years and years ago) and the Gruffalo trail.

The Lodge

We went for a walk at The Lodge, which is is a nature reserve run by the RSPB named after the building there, The Lodge, which is their headquarters. It has
woodland, heath and acid grassland habitats covering 238 hectares, and are being restored to form the largest stretch of heathland in Bedfordshire.

The site has two Iron age forts built about 700 BC; the more impressive, on Galley Hill, has obvious banks and ditches. We also loved the woodland with beautiful oak trees and numerous different kinds of fungi!

Deer and Mushrooms

(No not together!)... Today the girls and I went for lovely walk in Hatfield Forest. One of the lovely things about the forest, is if you walk down a little path off a main drive you can easily avoid seeing other people!  Whilst we were there we looked for mushrooms. Here a few of the ones we found:

We also spotted deer - this time being lucky enough to see a mother and fawn as well as stag (although I was too slow to get a good photo :( ).

The girls also had fun climbing trees, throwing javelins (well sticks anyway), acorn collecting and just enjoying the trees.

Blackberry picking

We walked along the roman road (the linton side of the All) where there are lots and lots of brambles and enjoyed the warm sun and picked blackberries where we all got stung and pricked and ate far more than we picked!

Slimbridge

We visited Slimbridge which is s a wetland reserve managed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust near Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. We stayed most of the day, including eating a lovely lunch in their cafe!  We didn't see everything and will definitely return for a second visit!  

 You can buy bird food, which we did and enjoyed feeding the swans. G and P even hand feed them (I am terrified of swans)

 We enjoyed a chance to meet some non-native amphibians. There were numerous talks  through out the day - we enjoyed this one and the otter talk very much! 

 Slimbridge has numerous nene (also known as Hawaiian geese), the rarest goose in the world.

 There are many (who knew there could be so quite so many varied) types of aquatic fowl!  I thought this black and white one was really pretty!  

We also saw enjoyed the  wild bird feed from the  comfort of the heated observatory, although sadly because it has been so mild we only saw a few Bewick’s swans!

Rockpool Safari/Coastering and crabbing

Today the big girls went off to walk, scramble, climb, swim and cliff jump around the Blue Lagoon, whilst P, E and me went on  a Rockpool Safari to Nine Wells, led by TYF, where we enjoyed scrambling round rocks finding various jelly fish, sea weed and shell fish followed by hot chocolate cooked in a cave! 

After a quick picnic near the Cathedral in St. Davids we walked to Port Clais. When we reached the harbour we joined a National Trust organised crabbing where we caught loads of shore crabs with bacon as bait.