Prices:

There is no price for entry but you do pay for parking:

Parking –

• Up to 1 hour: £4.30
• 1 to 2 hours: £8.00
• 2 to 4 hours: £11.00
• Over 4 hours: £12.00

Length of time spent here:

Just over four hours. (We had to pay the £12 for parking).

My Review

I went with my husband, Phil, (who has now gotten over the Tottenham game) and my daughter, Amy, and our grandson Harry, who was enjoying his first proper day out with us.

First stop was the cafe, (you’ll come to realise that this is how we start our days out, cafe and then the toilets). We bought three coffees, lattes, and three custard slices, this cost us £17.50 which I thought was a bit steep, but when you saw the size of those custard slices and how lovely they tasted, it didn’t seem so bad.

We planned out our day, while Harry, who has just discovered he has a voice, made squawking noises, much to the amusement of an elderly couple who were sat on the next table. It was almost as though he was saying to us, “Hurry up, I want to go and explore outdoors.” So we followed Harry’s advice and tried to find the start of the red route, which was the longest one at 5 miles (well, I had to walk off that custard slice!).

This is the map we had picked up from reception, but try as we might, we just couldn’t find where the red route started, ended or anything in the middle. We rather hopefully followed a trail, but knew deep down it wasn’t the right one. We decided to cut our losses and followed some signs which led us back to the main area.

We decided that as it was still a bit early and the custard slice was still laying a bit heavy on our stomachs that we would go for a train ride. This was an extra cost, but Harry went free.  The costs were:

We decided on the Adult return tickets and boarded the train. You start from Lakeside station and travel to Kingsmere station.  It was one where you sat on a bench and a miniature sized steam engine pulled the carriages. We went to Kingsmere Station which didn’t seem to take that long and disembarked to cross the bridge where you can take a train back to Lakeside station.

There was a train souvenir shop, a model train set and a tea shop. We had a quick look round and then got back on the train. The journey back was longer and we went through a couple of tunnels, which everyone seemed excited about as we all cheered as we went through!

After the excitement of the train, it was time for lunch. Again, we brought our own lunch and ate it in the picnic field by the train station. There was a Steam Train Fair going on, with lots of locomotives on display and steam engines, with a few classic cars.

But Harry and Phil decided they quite like the remote controlled tanks with the Action Man figures inside. I’m not sure who was having the most fun, the kids running away from the tanks or the men with the remote controls chasing the kids!

The tanks were from the Southern Armour Group, I have linked their Facebook page.

So we sat and watched the tanks while we ate our lunch.

After lunch we decided that the red route was not going to defeat us! So we walked again, with renewed enthusiasm and full stomachs and found the start straight away. It wasn’t really that hard to find as it is marked by a huge totem pole!

This time we were a lot more successful with reading the map, which considering both my husband and daughter are ex-scout leaders, is how it should be, (we’ll overlook the earlier walk!)

We followed the 5 mile route, which did prove a little tricky sometimes, pushchairs and roots poking up from the ground don’t go together well, but it was a lovely walk which ended up at the lake.

The sun had started to shine, it had been a little drizzly earlier on and we came upon a steam engine parade, when Harry nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the engine drivers tooted a whistle at him.

We rounded off the day with an ice cream, which I can say was one of the best ice creams I’ve had in a long time, but we did feel guilty as Harry isn’t old enough to have them yet, so he had to sit in his pushchair and watch us!

After that it was time to go home. This was a great day out, even though we only did the walks, there is a whole lot of other activities at Moors Valley, including Go Ape. We walked under the course of high wires and Amy and Phil decided that we are going to come back, when Amy’s husband comes back from sea, (he’s a sailor) and they are going to complete the Go Ape course. My reply was, “Good luck with that, I’ll look after Harry.” So, expect a review about that, but not my experience, theirs.