Camping with Kids Revisited

When Callum was 20 months old, I thought I would surprise Stuart and I took us all camping. In secret, I booked the pitch at a campsite on the Kent-Sussex border, packed the tent and all the gear into the back of the car and instructed Stuart to come home early from work on the Friday of the May Day Bank Holiday and off we went to Romney.

I was so excited.

However, it was pretty much a disaster. We arrived after Callum’s bedtime, it took me an hour to boil pasta for our dinner due to the cold and wind, it rained most of the time, the nights were freezing, Callum refused to sleep between us on the blow up (plus there wasn’t really enough room) and Stuart vowed never to take a child camping again and definitely never to go camping in May!

I was a little less deterred and chalked it down as a learning experience. That said, I was in less of a hurry to repeat the experience with Millie.

Yet, along came May just after Millie turned 21 months and Stuart and I found ourselves in a camping shop looking at tents and planning a May bank-holiday camping trip!

But this time was going to be different!

We were actually planning the camping trip for a week in August but were keen to purchase this new style of tent which you inflate instead of using poles which means it can be put up in a matter of minutes and by one person. We were also going Super-size! Our memory of our previous camping trip with Callum not entirely forgotten, we figured it’d be a good idea to take the tent for a tester trip for a weekend close to home.

We decided on the, potential to be slightly warmer, Whitsun bank-holiday and we headed less than 30 miles away to a town near Swanage called Langton Matravers. We took the ferry so we could pretend it was like a ‘proper’ holiday in a different country and not just down the road in the same county!

Due to me being out on the Friday night, we also left it until the Saturday morning to go so there were no over-tired and over-excited children waiting for their tea and not going to sleep!

We were still nervous as the weather was ‘iffy’ and this was to be the first time Millie would be sleeping in a ready-bed.

We arrived at the basic but clean Acton Field Campsite. It already looked busy and we struggled to find a pitch big and flat enough for our huge new 8 man tent that was the required 6 meters away from neighbouring tents but we finally settled on somewhere which had an amazing view too.

 

The weather was holding (despite the torrential downpour that was flooding our back garden earlier that morning) and after shopping for some supplies I managed to cook a dinner of rice and chicken curry in 30 minutes and just before the rains returned.

Come bed time, Millie was asleep in record time whereas the excitement for Callum was making him want the wee every 5 minutes, resulting in several trips to the loos in the pouring rain. By this time it was amazing how busy the campsite had got. Our previously dismissed pitches which we had considered too bumpy were now home for campers and tents of all shapes and sizes and many were still arriving or having to leave due to lack of space and tents were being erected in the pouring rain.

It was a very cold night and Callum woke the once then being the first to wake at 6am who woke his sister shortly after as he had to get the wipes from her room (yes she had her own room – they both did!). I hadn’t slept well at all due to the cold and the slope causing me to roll into Stuart until he got fed up and I perched on the edge of the mattress using all my muscles to stay put. Every muscle ached by morning! We didn’t hear a peep from Millie.

The Sunday was much better weather and we had an enjoyable day at nearby Putlake Adventure Farm.

That evening, we attempted a bbq with a disposable I had bought ‘just in case’ the previous year but the absence of matches and the old bbq meant that weren’t gonna happen (even after borrowing a lighter from a neighbour) so it was fried burgers and sausages instead and an enjoyable chill out with a glass of vino as the sun went down.

Callum had made a friend with an older girl (check him out!) in a nearby caravan and I was reminded of my own childhood enjoying the freedom and friends that camping and caravanning promoted.

As a nice surprise, friends of ours had also pitched up at the same campsite with their camper van so we enjoyed a tipple or two with them before settling in for our night 2. Millie hadn’t gone to sleep quite so easily that night and when we thought she had gone quiet some time later, discovered she had instead decided to investigate her travel bag and discovered the face softening powers of sudocreme (or she thought Christmas had come early, it is hard to say!)

Well if you can’t beat them, join them eh?

She did eventually drift off and they both slept to a respectable 7.30am for what was a much warmer night.

Monday meant time for home so we packed up the tent which, after the joys of being a one man job to put up, proved to be a more involved and challenging job to put down and squeeze back into the bag from which it came.

We joined our friends for a pasty and pint over at The Star and Compass in nearby Worth Matravers before making our way back home after, what we considered a much more successful camping trip though still came away with lessons learnt for next time. But confident there would still be a next time…in August!

Half Term Adventures: Day 3

On Wednesday, we went to the National History Museum in London. I’d already suggested to Stuart that it would be nice to spend a family day going to London to the museums. I have wanted to take Callum to see the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum for ages so that’s primarily what we had decided on and if there was time maybe we’d visit another – Ha! Anyway, as luck would have it, Callum came home with his homework book and the latest project which was to be dinosaurs! Bonus! This was one project and homework topic Callum and I could put some effort in – I confess we are a bit slack usually!

My memory of going to London museums when I was little was on a school trip that would be one museum in a whole day but would involve going around it several times answering questions etc and would obviously include the coach trip there and back and lunch. The other time I went was with my friends Grandma and we got on busses and went to a couple of museums in the same day. Things have changed! Yes it was half term but wow! The queue was snaking around, back and forth forever. We got there about 12noon so we decided to go and get some lunch instead and see whether the queue was any better afterwards.

When we came back we saw the queue for the accessible entrance (for wheelchairs and pushchairs) and thankfully it seemed a bit smaller and moving fairly quickly. The other queue was still huge and hardly moving. We ended up queuing for about 40 minutes. We had been warned that we needed to queue for the dinosaurs too so we headed straight there. Yep, the queue said an hour. Thankfully, it moved quickly and again I’d say it was for about 40 minutes.

We had splashed out the fiver for a guide too. They had a generic version and a special children’s version which had games in which was really nicely done and cost the same amount. This helped to keep Callum entertained in the queues. To be fair to Callum and Millie, they were both very very good and patient in the queues. (Wondering how many times I can use the word queue or queues in one blog post?)

Unfortunately, that wasnt it for the queues (not done yet) as, because we had a pushchair with us, we had to queue for the one-person-and-chair-at-a-time lift to the metal walkway.

The dinosaur exhibition was interesting enough for little ones and had facts at their level to read and understand and Millie loved pointing out the dinosaurs. Stuart and I did feel there was room for a bit of updating with the exhibitions – but then the main museum is free so I guess to do so would cost money. However, I would like to see what the Dorchester Dinosaur Museum is like in comparison.

We had enough time to see the dinosaurs, mammals, creepy crawlies, marine creatures and fishes then just before leaving Callum and Stuart headed into this volcano thing but Stuart said we didn’t miss anything (it was up an escalator so Millie and I didn’t go up with the buggy).

We left the museum and headed to High Street Kensington, near the hotel where we had parked the car (£18 for 9 hours parking) to find somewhere for dinner. We were concerned that we wouldn’t find anywhere suitable to take the kids, being as it was pricey High St Ken and in our experience London restaurants aren’t the most accommodating for children but thankfully Stuart spotted a ‘My Old Dutch’ restaurant, a pancake restaurant chain. We had previously been to the Holborn branch and it was perfect for the kids.

After dinner, we went back to the car, got them in the PJs and drove home. All of us exhausted!

Bournemouth Family Adventure Festival

I love active outdoor sports, not that you’d know it! I do very little but mainly because when you have kids you either don’t get the opportunity or if you try to get them involved it gets very expensive. However, if I’m ever going to get the opportunity again it’s good to get the kids interested early! We are lucky enough to have a skate park in the park behind where we live where the local kids ride their bikes and scooters. Callum loves going there to watch the older boys (not seen any girls there yet) and he can have a little scoot around and vows he is going to do stunts like they do when he gets bigger. I told him he needs to get a little braver first as there’ll be lots of falls before he masters any of the tricks and I started showing him YouTube clips of the professionals to show him how they fall off and jump straight back on again!

As a result I found out there was going to be a Family Adventure Festival at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) and the Animal Bike Tour was going to be there. Callum was very excited so I purchased a couple of tickets. An adult 2 day pass was £9 (£5 for a day) and under 5’s were free which I thought was very reasonable so I purchased the 2 day tickets.

It opened at 10am and we got there on the Saturday about 11am. There were stalls and displays going on across 2 rooms which included High Ropes (Go Ape style), vertical slide, climbing wall, the Animal Bike Tour display, Bush Surival demonstration, the Animal Man talk, Slacklining display, plus various stalls providing information on various activities, opportunity to buy clothing etc. Outside they had a Zip Wire.

This is how we spent our day:

• Vertical Slide (took Callum a monumental effort to climb up to the top of the slide but he was fearless going down).
• The Animal Man talk – fantastic show where the kids got up close to a number of animals - Giant African Snail, Tarantula (yes I did say Tarantula), Snake, Bearded Dragon, Pancake Tortoise, Meerkat, Owl, Chinchilla, Skunk. The Animal Man, Nick, really engaged the kids and would ask for a couple of volunteers to go up and hold or touch the animal – including the tarantula. The kids were very brave and the animals were so well behaved. Here is a poor photo of Callum stroking a Chinchilla.
• Animal Bike Tour – we caught the end of Martin Ashton, Blake Samson, James somebody on the bikes and another guy demonstrating parkour (free running). As this was the main attraction for Callum we went back to this again later to see the whole show.

 

• Zip Wire – we then headed outside to the zip wire. This was free to festival goers but also open to the public for £3 a ride. The queue wasn’t too long but we did have to wait about 20 minutes as it took time to put the harness & hats on everyone. Callum was so brave and followed instructions from the guys really well. Here’s a video of him coming down the wire and as soon as he got off he asked if he could go again. We didn’t immediately but we did go back to it at the end when Stuart went on it too.

Callum going down the Zip Wire

 

• Lunch – we ate in the cafe at the BIC outside of the exhibition. It filled a hole! Nothing amazing!
• Climbing Wall – Callum had a couple of goes trying to climb the wall. Both times he started well and managed to get to about 7 ft high before getting stuck but I’m really proud of him for trying and the lady said he was probably the youngest child they’d had on the wall.
• Slacklining – Portlebay UK Slackline Open competition was being held on the day we visited where ‘trickliners’ each performed their best high skill tricks against one another to compete to win a cash prize.
• 
  Animal Bike Tour – we left the slacklining competition to catch the full bike display. Having been to the bike tour down on the beach at the Bournemouth Airshow a couple of years ago, the display itself was much the same but with a few additional tricks and the extra couple of guys added a bit more diversity to it. I don’t think Callum really remembers seeing the show at the airshow anyway so he enjoyed it. Blake Samson was also kind enough to pose for a photo with Callum.
• Zip Wire – just before leaving we headed back out to the zip wire so Callum could have a second go. He insisted Daddy went with him this time and Stuart agreed that it was good fun!

We didn't visit many of the stalls as we weren’t interested in buying anything or signing up to any subscriptions or clubs. There were a number of freebies being handed out during the festival too. There was a bag with a few sample waterproofing products as we went in, a few freebies being thrown out to lucky people during the bike tour and you got a free waterbottle if you entered their competition to win a bike, there was a free bottle of the really good (in my opinion) P20 sun block and packets of flavoured popcorn (the bacon and maple syrup was rather salty but quite tasty) and juice were the things we picked up.

I would have liked to have caught the Bush Survival demonstration as they were showing how to skin an animal but then I’m rather gruesome like that. Otherwise we were happy with what we had seen when we left around 4pm. I did feel a bit sorry for Millie who had to just sit in her pushchair and watch – although she seemed happy enough to play with Callum’s balloon for a bit. I was a bit gutted there weren’t more activities that the grown ups were encouraged to try as, after all, it was a ‘family’ adventure festival not just a kids one but Callum said he enjoyed himself.

Although we had a good day, we felt one day was adequate and so gave away the tickets for the Sunday. Unfortunately, the feedback was that the demonstrations weren’t so good on the Sunday so sounds like we picked the best day, just a shame my friend and her family didn’t get to enjoy their visit as much as we did.

The Festival also held a number of free ‘fringe’ events during the weeks leading up to the main event in nearby Bournemouth boroughs. Callum and I headed to the Boscombe event being held on the Wednesday the week before where Callum got recorded throwing a tennis ball at 18.6mph (very good for a 4 year old apparently) but I wasn’t overly impressed with the small number of activities happening in the fringe events but the main event more than met expectation.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own (or those of my family).

Family Trip to Isle of Wight

Being as we are growing our family this year and having just bought a house, we are forgoing any kind of ‘proper’ holiday this year (*sob*). So when a friend of mine let me know Travel Lodge were having a sale earlier in the year, I booked a couple of nights at the one on the Isle of Wight. I’d never been before and Stuart had fond memories of going with his mum & brother when he was younger so we had recently discussed going ourselves as a family.

I managed to book Sunday 13 and Monday 14 May at the hotel and I booked the 10am Red Funnel ferry from Southampton giving us plenty of day there on the Sunday without having to get up at too ungodly an hour and then likewise for the ferry home, for the cheaper tickets and to give us as much day there as possible, I booked the 17.30 on the way back. The hotel room came to £20 for 2 nights for a family room meaning it cost us more for the breakfast (which was extra!) which, considering Callum was free and we had a £1 discount, wasn’t cheap!

Now all we needed was the weather! Surely not a problem in May – to at least be fairly mild in temperature!!

As May arrived it looked set to follow in April’s footsteps as a complete washout but thankfully on the Sunday we went, the sun was out and it looked to be a lovely day! I’d checked the weather forecast and, unfortunately, the Sunday looked like it was going to be the best and only good sunny day so we had thought it best to use that day to go straight to Blackgang Chine. Blackgang Chine, for anyone who doesn’t know or hasn’t been, is a theme park style attraction but for younger children. There aren’t many actual rides – just a couple of water slides (where you sit on a dingy) and a rollercoaster that was broken when we were there – it is more about stuff to see and walk around. There was a dinosaur world with rather tired looking dinosaurs but Callum wasn’t bothered and kids were allowed to climb up them (as Stuart said, Health & Safety hasn’t quite made it to Isle of Wight yet, and is all the better for it!), there was Frontier Land with cowboys & indians, a pirate ship play area with water cannons to shoot at each other, what 3 year old little boy wouldn’t love it??!!

It was perfect for Callum and, I assume because of the time of year, not too busy so no queues for anything. As an added bonus, because Callum was under 4, he was free. Making it a very reasonable day trip at £10.50 for each adult. I’ve paid more to go to a farm which had a lot less to do so I thought this was pretty good.

We were there for about 4.5 – 5 hours which was plenty of time to take our time going round the whole park and we were all pretty knackered by the end of it – particularly with my OAP style hips and back at the moment!!!

Stuart having been there before, it was interesting to hear how the park had changed a little since he was younger due to about a third of it disappearing into the sea from erosion but the bits he remembered loving when he was little were still there if a little different or in a new location.

Here are some photos from our day:

 
Stuart about to get eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex in Dinosaur World

On board one of the two pirate ships

Callum & Stuart enjoying the super whizzy slides that made up the Snakes in Snakes & Ladders

Getting wet! What a shame pregnant ladies can’t ride

Exhausted!

We headed to the hotel after the park which, apart from an empty bottle of cider or ale left down the side of Callum’s bed, was sufficient for our needs. No thrills but none needed! We dumped our stuff then headed into Newport town to get some dinner. We found an Italian/Mediterranean restaurant called Olivio’s where we had a lovely meal.

On the Monday the weather was a bit colder and more miserable. We drove round a few places and stopped off at Alum Chine to check out the Needles. The Needles Park was tired to say the least and is in desperate need a of a bit of TLC but we braved the treacherous looking chair lift down to the beach. We survived! The cliffs are famous for the layers of different rocks causing the cliffs and sand to be multicoloured with yellows, oranges, reds and blacks. I understand they used to let people buy bottles and fill them up with their own collection of multicoloured sand but they either don’t do that any more (they have ready made bottles in the gift shop) or weren’t doing it on the day we were there – perhaps it’s a seasonal thing.

We didn’t hang around with the weather being a bit meh, I’m sure it is a nicer experience if the whether is better.

For the rest of the day we just drove around the coast of the island (well I did while the boys slept!) and then gave in to the rotten weather and took Callum to soft play back in Newport! We ended the day with another lovely meal at the Bargemans Rest at Newport Quay.

Tuesday was home day but with the ferry not until 17.30 that evening we wanted something to do for the rest of the day. Again, the weather was a bit changeable but Isle of Wight is a bit lacking in indoor entertainment so we went to the Owl & Monkey Haven which is on the outskirts of Newport. Its quite a new attraction, less than a couple of years old I think, so it was clean and had a nice play area but not really much to see and we were done in less than 2 hours. Although £8.50 for adults and £6.95 for kids (3- 14) didn’t seem too expensive first off, for only a couple of hours where all Callum really wanted to do was play in the play area it was a bit disappointing really. We didn’t want to pay out for another attraction that day but with the weather like it was we weren’t fussed about hunting out free entertainment for the remainder of our stay either so after lunch we got an earlier ferry home!

Overall, I think we all had a nice time but it is definitely a fair weather destination. I would like to go back but think that even if the weather had have been nicer, a few days is enough or, being as its so close to us, even a day trip!