Corfe Castle

 On a very warm August day, we travelled to one of our favourite corners of England, Dorset. We wanted to visit Corfe Castle and its town for the day.

Why Corfe Castle you ask? You probably think there's only the castle to visit and nothing else! Wrong! There's an adventure park right around the castle called Dorset Adventure Park. The Park has a water park and a mud trail! Therefore that's where we headed. We picked to do the mud trail. We initially thought it will be quite dry as it was quite warm and just some mud puddles. Oh boy, were we wrong! It is literally one of the greatest fun we had and such a unique experience. There's about 50 obstacles across a large area. Some areas were actually swamp where you are covered upto your shoulders. There's also slides where you will literally dunk your whole body into the mud so don't take your phones or take anything with you that could be lost. If you don't want to do any of the obstacles, you can skip them. You have 2 hours to complete the trail and can go as often as you like within the 2 hours. You can do the trail at your own speed. You ill need to wear trainers and old clothes that you don't mind to get extremely dirty. We wore our swim suit underneath as the showers are open and we are not allowed to use any soap or shampoo as these are eco-showers. There are lockers and changing rooms too. There's a seperate company that will be taking photos at a cost but if you have someone who doesn't want to do the trail, hey can follow your progress through a dry route and take photos. The prices were quite cheap for the awesome experience we had! We will definetely return for more fun. The park also has a cafe, picnic table and a little farm where Mahi spotted a white peacock too!

After cleaning ourselves, we headed to Corfe Castle which was located on a hill and provided beautiful views of the Dorset countryside. There is an admission cost but free for National Trust members. The castle is located in the middle of the very picturesque village with its many shops and cafes. If you visit during school holidays, the kids will be entertained with extra activities. 

Close to the castle, there's also the steam railway which will take you to Swanage if you want to spend some time by the beach. The beach is sandy and not too big but we enjoyed the views. There's also a small activity park with crazy golf and other entertainments.

Between the Corfe and Wareham, there is the Blue Pool Nauture Pool. You can't swim in the pool but a nice place to relax and enjoy the views with its beautiful water colour. There is an entrance fee as well.

Altogether we had a great time and definetely will recommend visiting the Dorset Adventure Park if you are in the area!

Forest of Dean attractions

 Situated between 2 countries, Forest of Dean offers so many attractions. The Forest of Dean covers a big area so we targeted just 1 town.

We headed to the town of Coleford to visit Clearwell caves and Puzzlewood. which are just a few minutes walk away from each other and make up for a great day.

Both attractions have entrance fees but have accessibility issues.

We headed to Clearwell caves which was an old mining for iron. We really enjoyed this as it has a lot of information about the history of the mines but also children working in the caves which I thought made it relatable to my kids. There's also a pool which was beautiful to see. The cave is a one-way system and you will need to wear good footwear as some areas are slippery! Once you come out, there's a nice gift shop, a cafe and also a little play area! This could be done in 1hour.

After lunch and a little play in the play area, we then headed to Puzzlewood.  To go inside the woods, you need to pass through a little farm with ponies, sheep and donkeys. The woods were like you stepped into Hobbiton, which funnily was the inspiration for Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books! It was so green and so weird wit branches twisting in strange way. I totally felt like we were in Middle Earth! It has a quite a lot of different pathways if it gets crowded so you can make walk as long or short as you would like. Once we were done, we headed to the cafe for some ice cream and then the play area. There's also a mini maze. The place has plenty of parking and lots of picnic areas. The only bad thing I have to say is that the price was not really justifiable as it was just walking around the weird woods.

We had a good day at Forest of Dean and loved the views to and from the village from Gloucester!

There's also Perrygrove Railway Adventure and Hopewell Colliery but we didn't want to visit them and couldn't fit all in one day.

Steampunked in Lincoln!

 On a very sunny bank holiday Monday in August, we headed to Lincoln not knowing what was going to welcome us! We walked to the Town Centre which was a really nice town with a river flowing through it. We wanted to visit the Castle and Cathedral so we climbed the very steep hill. It was quite steep!

Now, once we got to the square, we saw a lot of people dressed in costume an found out that it was a Steampunk Festival! From what I understand Steampunk is a combination of sci-fi and Victorian times costumes. We were all quite fascinated by the costumes and robots! Such talent. We visited the castle grounds to enjoy the festival! You can visit the castle, prison, magna carta and walk the castle walls. However, the kids didn't want to visit the castle and wanted to enjoy the festival and its range of events so we did just that. Highly recommend visiting Lincoln during the Steampunk festival! It was truly an experience not to be missed!

We then visited the Cathedral across the Castle. We also visited the Bishops Palace ruins which was beautiful to see. The views of Lincoln were great from there too.

We then visited the Lincoln Museum down the hill which explained the history of the town but also more. It also had an exhibition. There was also a Lego station for kids to build anything!

Another place to visit was the International Bombing Command Centre which is across the town with a small fee to pay. We didn't visit this but it looks like a great place to learn some history from.

Towards the end of our trip, we visited the Lincoln Arboretum which was beautiful and had a calming effect after a hectic day. It also had a nice lake and a great place to have a picnic.

Lincoln must be visited during the bank holiday weekend!

A day in Ramsgate

 If you are looking for a seaside town not too far from London, Ramsgate is a great option with a few things to do on top of relaxing at the sandy beach.

The highlight of our trip was the Ramsgate Tunnels which was a railway tunnel before turning it into a bomb  shelter used during WW2.You will need to book a guided tour before your visit and the tickets were quite reasonable. You will need to wear sensible footwear and carry a cardigan as it can quite cold inside the tunnels. There's a great exhibition explaining the history of the tunnels. Did you know that Ramsgate was the most bombed town during WW2 with 500 bombs within a couple of minutes? But because of the tunnel shelter, the death count was low despite the heavy bombing! At the start of our tour, we saw a little movie about the the tunnels and its role during WW2. It wasn't too long and our guide asked us a few questions which was really good as it kept us engaged. We were told the safety precautions and then headed to the tunnels. Helmets are not mandatory but are there if you need. We really enjoyed the tour which took between 1h30-1h45 with plenty of stops. Where there are no lights, you will be provided with torches. At the end, we got to see photos and hear stories of people who were in the tunnels. It was quote emotional! A great time was had by all of us even by my unenthusiastic teenager.

Next time, we headed to the harbour and visited the amusement arcade and walked around the promenade which was nice! We also walked on Madeira walk with a nice little garden to visit and relax.

There were 2 unusual museums to visit:

1) This Museum is (not) Obsolete -  An interactive Museum Celebrating Experimental,                    Musical And Obsolete Technologies.

2) The Micro Museum - Kent's only Museum of vintage computers and video games.

We had a great day out by the seaside with many unusual things to do! Thanks you Ramsgate!