A trip to The National Adventure Farm

The other day we met up with my cousin and her two kiddies at the National Adventure Farm and what a great day out we had! The weather was lovely and the kids got straight down to business of playing hard!

It's a big place and you can easily stay all day and not get bored, my cousin lives just down the road and has a season pass, so they know all the good bits to do! We went last time we were in the UK and Ebi-kun couldn't wait to go on the vertical drop slide again.

First up was a ride on the barrels being pulled by a tractor...

Then we decided to go and do the 10 acre maize maze, which meant walking past the scarecrows, they are attempting a world record and had 1500 on display the day we went, you can take your own to put on display or build one there but we ran out of time....

 My mom very sensible decided to wait for us whilst we did the maize, the kids took it in turn to decide which way to go, which as you can imagine, got us lost in a matter of minutes. You do get provided with a flag incase you need help. At one point M decided he'd had enough and just wanted us to wave the flag but we stuck at it and managed to find out way out, we were in there for an hour.

It's the first time I have been in one of this mazes too and it's quite disorientating once you are in there. Luckily there are some look out posts on the way, you can also buy a sealed map, if you don't open it then you get your money back, we told the kids that if we didn't open it we would be able to buy ice-cream, so they were all for doing it the hard way.

After the maze we had some lunch and a play on the big slides inside then the boys decided they wanted to play in the splash area, of course I hadn't taken a change a clothes for Ebi-kun so he borrowed a pair of joggies from M then had to go commando for the rest of the day! This was great, a pile of hose pipes and some barriers to hide behind, the kids were having a whale of a time!

Then it was time for some more bouncing and the assault course, we also did the go-carts and saw the animals somewhere along the line! I was shattered just watching them.

We had arrived just after 10am and left at 5pm, so we got our moneys worth out of it all. The kids can't wait to get together again, hopefully after our trip to Brighton we can have another playdate.

Vertical drop slides and go-carts

One of the last places we went to was the National Forest Adventure Farm near Burton-on-Trent, where we met up with Di and Ry. This place is great, well worth the money, considering the local wacky warehouse place costs about 4 quid to get in, this place cost a couple of pound more and you can easily spend all day here without getting bored.

Inside is a big soft play structure which include a place for under 5's, some giant Lego and vertical drop slides and yes, they really do have a vertical drop. Ebi-kun being well, Ebi-kun was straight up there, it didn't cross his mind to try the smaller of the slides first, oh no, straight on the big one! These slides are not for mothers with a weak heart, I can tell you. Apparently adults can go on too but I didn't see any try it out, Di and I did venture onto the bumpy slide but that was about enough excitement for us.

Even the ball pool slide starts with a vertical drop! When we arrived it was virtually empty, it got a bit busier later but not manically so. There is also a big area to eat lunch, the food was homemade and lovely and very reasonably priced.

Outside they have a load of things to do, there are go-carts, free tractor ride, in the summer they have a maize maze, animals to visit, play areas, football shoot-out, little tractors to ride...

It is a perfect place to go, whatever the weather. We also discovered that it is not far from where my cousin lives, if we had known beforehand we could have met up with them too!

They also have a giant bouncy pillow, crazy golf, water gun area (for the warmer months!), beach volleyball and fossil dig plus lots of activities going on throughout the year. We had loads of fun, it would have been better only if it had been a tad warmer, it is definitely somewhere we would like to go back to next time we are over.

Just one UK tour blog post left and that will wrap it all up! Today feels like the first day back at work proper, finally the jet lag has subsided, I am still waking up at at 4am but at least I can make it through the day now without crashing! Ebi-kun is back at school and it is time for me to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in with my work.