Cycle the Solar System in York

As our family gets older and our children move on from the ‘little children’ stage we now have a whole range of new activities and days out that we can now spend our time doing.

We can all ride bikes and have been on bike rides near to our house but these are all relatively short or can include some steep hills. We decided to venture to York after a good friend recommended a trip cycling through space!

Just outside York on the old East Coast main railway line is a 10km cycle trail alongside a scale model of the solar system. Every 100m on the cycle trail is equivalent to 57 million miles in space and the speed that you cycle along it is about 10 times the speed of light!

We invested in a bike rack for the car although finding one for 4 bikes was a bit tricky.  We parked our car at the site of the old Escrick station a little way from the village of Escrick. The station is not there anymore just a car park  on the left of the road which is not sign posted and we drove past it at first.

Escrick is a little way into the trail and we cycled towards York. The planets along the way are not only to scale in the distance between them but also in the size of the planet itself.

At first the planets are quite spaced out but the closer to York you get the more frequent they become. It was excellent motivation to keep cycling and my girls kept peddling on in an attempt to be the first one to find the next planet!

There are a couple of pubs on the route which serve food but we stopped at the old Naburn station where they serve giant slices of really good cake along with sandwiches and coffee. I also took snacks with us in case our girls or us ran low on energy. The secret to keeping my younger daughter happy is keeping her energy topped up!

After we reached the sun which is a huge golden sphere suspended above the trail we turned round and cycled back towards the car. Between Mars and Jupiter there is Brunswick Organic Nursery which has a little shop selling ice creams along with organic produce and plants.

If you are looking for your first family cycle out or a trail which is on the flat the Solar System Cycle is fun, educational and a lovely day in the countryside.

A trip to Valley Gardens, Harrogate

Today seemed to be the day for all of Yorkshire to head outdoors because the sun was shining. The sunshine was deceptive as it was still only 10 degrees but a large proportion of visitors were trying to believe it felt more like 20 degs! I think everyone is becoming impatient that we are still waiting for our summer to start!

We decided to have a valuable morning at home in our pj’s. I was baking for the rowing club fun day for tomorrow and the girls were involved in an imaginary game for the whole morning.

This afternoon we headed to the Valley Gardens in Harrogate. The park is right near the centre of Harrogate and has so much to offer. If you live in Harrogate you will know all about it and if you are not familiar with Harrogate then it’s a great place to go on your next visit.

There is so much to do in the park from a brand new playground which has such a varied range of play equipment including a zip wire. There is crazy golf, pitch and putt and a traditional boating pond where for £1.50 you can captain a radio controlled boat for 5mins. My girls loved the boats and they could easily manage the controls by themselves. Ripley Ice cream has a cafe here and we had coffees and ice creams to take away. We found a sunny sheltered spot and if the wind dropped we could almost believe it was May Bank Holiday weekend!

On a hot summer day the Valley Gardens is a great spot to spend a few hours as in the playground there is a huge paddling pool. Heaven for anyone who likes to paddle or like my girls who choose to fully immerse themselves! Bring your picnic rug and towels and an afternoon here on a hot day can feel like the Med (well almost!)

So if you fancy a break from shopping in Harrogate’s great shops have a wander across to The Valley Gardens. You’ll be surprised and your children will love it!

Floating Picnics

Floating Picnics

After what seems like endless days of dark grey skies pouring never ending rain onto the sodden gardens, it’s hard to believe that it’s May this week! By this time as a family we normally have enjoyed a picnic or two! I’m desperate to get out my picnic rug, cool bag rucksack and my list of picnic places that I’ve been thinking about all winter, itching to enjoy the better weather when it was supposed to arrive!

Sadly the weather has evaded us but I will start to share some of the best picnic ideas in anticipation that things have to get better (don’t they?).

Row, row, row your boat

Quintessentially English. A beautiful, sunny summer day spending time by a river. My picnic idea is to take your hampers onto a rowing boat. We did this last year in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire on the River Nidd. It turned out as one of the best picnics we’ve had.

My husband Josh is a very keen rower, proper rowing boats a la Steve Redgrave (he also wishes he could be the Steve Redgrave type of rower as well!) We set off expertly rowed by Josh and the girls and I were perfectly placed so the boat was well balanced. At a quiet spot we pulled over to the river bank whilst we ate our lunch.  My girls were so thrilled we were eating on the river! The people in other boats looked at our ‘floating picnic’ with longing eyes. Drifting a little as we ate we had a lovely lunch. It made us feel as if we were part of ‘Wind in the Willows’ and we wouldn’t have been surprised to see Mole or Ratty in a passing boat!

The ‘floating picnic’ is now an annual trip to Knaresborough. We combine our picnic on water with an ice cream from the famous Brymor Ice Cream shop. Brymor ice cream is made with milk from Guernsey cows in the Yorkshire Dales and is delicious. There are over 35 flavours but my favourite is unchanged from my childhood- rum and raisin. We have to earn the ice cream as the shop is up a lot of very steep steps from the riverside up to Knaresborough Castle but it is so worth it! The castle dates back to medieval times and is another good place to explore (there is parking at the top of the hill as well if you can’t do the stairs).

We take our ice creams to Bebra Gardens, where in June, July and August there is a paddling pool for the children so make sure if it’s hot and sunny you take swimming costumes and towels. It’s easy to spend a couple of hours here just letting the children splash in the water. It’s also a great spot for a picnic and to meet friends.

There aren’t that many places in Yorkshire to hire rowing boats but when looking over the country as a whole there are plenty. My list of other ‘floating picnic’ destinations where I would like to go is as follows:

Henley- the ultimate rowing destination.
Oxford or Cambridge- this time have the picnic whist punting on the river.
Durham- with views of this historic city with cathedral and castle.
Stratford upon Avon- rowing out into the countryside.
Hyde Park, London- on the Serpentine at this Royal park way from the crowds.
Lake District- rowing on Windermere, Derwentwater or Ulswater with incredible views of the hills.
Norfolk Broads- there are so many places to row here the selection is huge!

So if you’re dreaming of the summer to come and thinking of somewhere to go try a ‘floating picnic’. You will all have a super time messing about in boats!

 

50 Things to do before you are 11 and 3/4 at The National Trust

We decided to make the most of The National Trust‘s free weekend yesterday. Even though the weather was a bit hit and miss we packed our wellies and rain coats and headed up to Beningbrough Hall near to York. We were lucky to miss the heavy rain showers and were able to experience everything that the NT had to entertain us.

My girls loved the adventure playground which was where we headed first but there was so much more on offer for them to have a go at.

They learnt how to climb a tree in probably the best tree I have ever seen for learning such a thing. It is a tangle of branches quite low off the ground that spread really wide. Even I didn’t feel too nervous watching them attempt to go from branch to branch. Their very green hands at the end was the only evidence of their new-found skill!

Den building was made easier for them with precut branches and with a bit of advice and guidance children were building many dens in the woodland, under the instruction of their dads who were obvious experts in this field!

National Trust have launched a summer activity called  ” 50 things to do before you’re 11 and 3/4“. It is a list of simple pleasures for your children to do whilst spending time outdoors. My girls were keen to start ticking off some of the things on the list so tree climbing and den building were our first two tasks achieved. They like the look of making a mud pie and taking a canoe down a river so we will plan these into our summer.  I too am looking forward to trying a few things I never got round to before  I reached 11 and 3/4!

Great gardens for children

Magical footsteps

Can you remember when you were a child how magical and entertaining a garden could be? I’m sure if you went back to visit the garden you’re thinking of then it would have shrunk in size since you were last there thirty odd years ago!

I remember a garden of a school friend who lived round the corner from me. My memories of it are as a vast garden with so many parts to it – lawns, overgrown areas, paths through the plants that grew so tall above our heads, places we could hide (and think we couldn’t be found!) but best of all it had a stream with stepping stones! To me this was and probably still is the pinnacle of any garden in which you would want an adventure.

I truly believe that children sometimes just want to be children! No computers, games consoles or television. Just to play. To transport themselves into whatever world takes their fancy – fairy lands, jungles, treehouses, dens or even as my girls have done this holiday they turned the garden into their office! Hours can be spent in their imaginary worlds all based in a garden.

I have been thinking about the places where my girls have had their best ‘garden games’ and I have come up with my list. Obviously there are an infinite number of places but these are my favourites!

1. Roundhay Park, Leeds.

In the Canal Gardens there some stepping stones over water right around the back of the ‘canal’. There is a summer house type shelter and a perfect tree to pretend you are riding a horse!

In the main park the three bandstands can provide cover for an imaginary game on a wet day or a walk up to the old folly.

2. York Gate Gardens, Adel, Leeds

This one acre garden looked after by Perennial, The Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society is truly magical. It has streams, numerous paths some half hidden in the dell, pergolas and benches dotted around. Each year they put on a lovely Easter egg hunt for the children which is just perfect as it feels unspoilt by the commercialism that you can find at such events.

3. RHS Garden Harlow Carr

I have lost track of the number of afternoons we have spent here just letting the children indulge themselves in imagination games (whilst we indulge in a take away coffee from ‘Betty’s Tearooms‘ which we can take into the gardens with us!)

4. Newby Hall and Gardens, near Ripon, North Yorkshire

There is so much to do at Newby Hall ranging from the huge adventure playground areas, my lifelong favourite miniature railway, water fountains to play in, a great picnic area to the fabulous gardens. There is a really magical part of the gardens where numerous paths crisscross and there are ponds and water features. As a child I truly believed that this was where fairies lived!

When you’re stuck for ideas of where to go remember that your children will be perfectly entertained exploring and playing in a garden.