Summer Fun at Moors Valley Country Park, Dorset

One of our favourite places to visit in Dorset is Moors Valley Country Park and it's always a fab day out with so much to do! With 1000 acres to explore there are plenty of beautiful walking/cycle trails, Go Ape Tree Top Adventure, cycle hire centre, a steam railway, picnic areas, Gruffalo sculptures and our favourite thing to do, the play trails. Here's a little look at what you can expect to see this Summer:

Play Trail

The play trail is perfect for families and is totally accessible for wheelchairs and buggies. (Although the adjoining Tree Top Trail is not suitable).  It's less than a mile around so ideal for little legs however you can expect to spend most of your day here because you won't be able to tear the kids away from the play equipment!

Featuring giant spiders to climb, a giant ants nest to explore, giant snakes to wriggle through and many more wooden play structures, Moors Valley really does have one of the best play areas I've ever seen.

This Summer, the play trail has been extended to include a brand new area called Bewildernest, one of the largest play areas across the park. Inspired by wild play and the magic of the forest, the Bewildernest area centres around a giant nest of native woodland shrubs with a mysterious maze of tunnels inside to navigate and explore, We can't wait to check this out on our next visit!

Zog Activity Trail

Another popular activity is the activity trail and this year, the trail is all about Zog. If you've not heard of Zog then he is a lovable dragon created by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. We adore Julia Donaldson stories and we've always had a soft spot for Zog, especially after seeing the book bought to life over Christmas on TV!

Visitors can follow the trail through Zog's forest classroom to learn more about the animals and habitats around them. There will be lots of dragons to spot along the way plus hidden images that children can reveal by using a special coloured lens from the activity pack. (Available to buy from the visitors centre for £3).

The Zog trail is buggy friendly and a fantastic way to see parts of the forest you wouldn't normally go to!

We were lucky enough to be invited to a very secret tea party recently with some other local bloggers and we got to meet Zog - Erin was a bit unsure but Elliot loved it. Especially when he got to take a selfie with him!

We even got to ride on the steam train with him - it's not every day you can say you shared a train with a bright orange dragon!

Gruffalo's 20th Birthday Celebrations - 6th & 7th July 2019

2019 marks the 20th anniversary of The Gruffalo book - I know, I can't believe it either! To celebrate his birthday, the Gruffalo will be back at Moors Valley for some special appearances over the weekend, plus free face painting and more. You'll also be able to download a very special activity pack featuring games, crafts and activities - keep an eye out on the Facebook event for this!

Moors Valley Railway - Open Weekend - 13th & 14th July 2019

Moors Valley Railway opens it's doors to the public next month and visitors can take a peek behind the scenes. For train enthusiasts, there is also a Model Railway Exhibition in the carriage shed.

You will also be able to drive a steam train in the "Driver for a Fiver" event which is always popular. We did this a few years ago and I'm not sure who enjoyed it more - Elliot or my husband!

For more information on all the events and play trails, plus parking charges, head over to:

https://www.moors-valley.co.uk/

Our February Half Term

January seemed to drag on forever and it felt like half term would never arrive! But finally it was time to relax...I say relax in the loosest sense as we had an action packed week planned. But still, there was no school run!

Here's what we got up to..

Abba Workshop / Upton Country Park

The first day of the holidays saw us having a split day - I spent the day with my choir on an Abba Workshop which was brilliant fun! The children had a day with Paul which was nice as they don't get to do it without me very often. The weather was a bit drizzly but he took them out for a long walk to a place called Upton Country Park. It's somewhere we love visiting and it's great because it's walking distance from our house, and there is always something fun to do!

He did make me laugh though, he packed a picnic for the kids but said they were still hungry and wanted something else....welcome to my life hah! Always blimmin hungry! 

Winchester Science Centre

This is fast becoming Elliot's favourite place to visit, in fact he's been there three times since December! We went along to review the half term activities and we had a brilliant day. There is so much to do and is definitely a full day out. Erin loves it too, she's too young to understand the science behind the experiments but give her a button to press and she's happy! 

Jawsome Sharks at Weymouth SEA LIFE Adventure Park

We've recently become Blogger Ambassadors for Weymouth SEA LIFE and it's somewhere we really enjoy visiting. The kids were looking forward to taking part in the Jawsome Sharks event and I was looking forward to seeing the Fairy Penguins - who are extremely cute by the way! 

We had lunch in the nearby pub too and they had a soft play area which was fab - more pubs should have this! It meant the kids weren't getting bored waiting for their food, and I got a few minutes of peace while they were off exploring. Not so easy getting them to leave though ;)

Dodging the showers at Kingston Lacy

Kingston Lacy is very popular at this time of year with thousands of people visiting to see the beautiful snowdrops. It certainly seemed like most of Dorset were there the same time as us judging by the number of cars in the carpark and queues in the cafe! 

It was a funny old morning with lots of sunshine and torrential showers but the kids didn't care about the rain, they just had lots of fun playing with their friends. We did have a muddy incident though...Erin decided that stomping in it wasn't enough and she ended up sitting in a very thick muddy puddle!

Looking for Zog at Moors Valley Country Park

Moors Valley is always a great place to visit as there are acres of forest to explore with lots of play trails along the way. There is also the brand new Zog trail! We didn't do the full trail which involves purchasing an activity pack from the information centre but we enjoyed spotting the Zog pictures along the way. 

We went with a couple of our friends and the children had a brilliant time playing on the wooden play areas. Thankfully we had no mud incidents although Elliot did manage to split his welly boots! 

Seaside Fun in Swanage

The weather looked lovely for Friday so we headed down to the seaside town of Swanage with some friends. Unfortunately the weatherman got it wrong and we drove into Swange in thick mist! It was pretty chilly too so not quite the warm Spring day we were hoping for. Never mind, we had lots of fun playing in the park, spending all our 2ps in the arcade - we even went to Wimpy, how retro! 

After lunch we decided to let the kids have a play on the beach - but it took them all of 5 seconds to get wet in the sea! Elliot's legs were drenched and his brand new wellies were full of water! Fortunately we had spare clothes and hypothermia was averted. They loved it though!!

Geocaching in our local area

On the last day of the holidays the sun was shining again so we decided to head out for a bit of Geocaching. If you've not heard of Geocaching before, it's a great activity that goes on all over the world and is basically a bit like a treasure hunt! 

We drove to a nearby village and followed a very muddy track that led us to several caches. Elliot was really excited to find his first geocoin too! 

The weather was absolutely gorgeous - mad to think that this time last year we had snow! 

So that was our half term holiday -nice and busy just as we like it! We did have a couple of days where we didn't go out and just chilled out at home - we all needed to recharge our batteries and it was nice not to have to rush out anywhere. 

We're on countdown to the Easter holidays now!