Monday 14 October 2013

#CountryKids Sizergh Castle Woodland Play Trail

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Regular readers will know that we are big fans of our nearest National Trust property Sizergh Castle. We have got our membership fee back just in trips here this year with special events and 50 Things challenges as well as using it as a base for walks. One thing it hadn't had was a play area for bigger kids. So when I heard about the new Woodland Play Trail I was keen to go try it out. 

The first challenge was to find out where it was! Cunningly its all part of trail to discover how to get there. The children had to read the clue then follow directions:

Sizergh Castle Woodland Play Trail

The signs took us on a safe route in the car park passing the signs for the Great British Walk:


great british walk

It was pretty obvious when we reached the actual start of the trail:


sizergh castle woodland play trail

My children were so keen to check it all out I had difficulty getting them to slow down enough to get photographs. I was just in time to catch my son going through the tunnel:

sizergh castle woodland play trail tunnel

Luckily grown ups don't have to crawl as they have kindly put in a Wussy Parent Route:


sizergh castle woodland play trail wussy parent route

Once in the woodland itself there were more clues and challenges to follow:


sizergh castle woodland play trail rope trail

The trickiest bit of the route came next and you had to use a rope to safely descend a slightly steeper slope: 


sizergh castle woodland play trail rope

Next up was a log path, as you can see my son wimped out and decided not to balance on it:


sizergh castle woodland play trail log path

Maybe he had read the warning sign:


sizergh castle woodland play trail log warning

What was nice about the route was that I could see the children ahead of me without having to be right on top of them:



Walking on stumps seemed to prove harder than log walking as it slowed them down a little bit:


sizergh castle woodland play trail stumps

Some of the clues gave us a chance to look at interesting things (well I looked any way!):


sizergh castle woodland play trail fungi

Parts of the course were more simply constructed with these branch arches to pass through (some of these were quite low for an adult!):


sizergh castle woodland play trail arch

The people building the course had gone to great lengths to put in things like this Branch House:


sizergh castle woodland play trail branch house

I bet the woodland will look even more superb in the spring when the flowers come out:


sizergh castle woodland play trail woods

And the reward for getting to the end:



Of course we did have to climb back up the mini cliff to get back to the castle. The children made this look easy but I was burdened with handbag and camera:


All in all a fun way to spend time outdoors with the children and to get them active without too much effort on your part! 

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