Weymouth Sea Life Adventure Park has turned the spotlight on scary critters of the deep this Halloween.
As well as meeting creepy spider crabs, batfish, ghost knifefish and other appropriately named creatures, we got to find lettered pumpkins that told us that humans who are the real monsters! (Sssshhhh I may have given you the answer to the challenge there).
The Park’s special package of fright-fest’ entertainment is on now until Sunday 30th October and also highlights the horrors that pollution, over-fishing and other human follies are inflicting on the marine world.
Of course there is lots of fishy fun too, plus spooky fact finding, lantern making, scary crafts and fancy dress.
For a small extra charge (£3 pp), you can meet Weymouth Sealife Centre’s resident witch, Zelda.
Hubble bubble toil and trouble……. enter the Enchanted Cabin set among the Wetlands, where you get to find the ingredients to help Zelda make spooky and ghoulish potions to help cure her sister from a terrible illness, before she makes you your very own potion to take away. What potion would you choose?
Once you have drunk your magic slushy potion, you are brave enough enjoy the rest of the park including some scary and not so scary rides!
Separate tickets apply for the magical experience with Zelda and to secure your place at the cauldron, book now at sealifeweymouth.com
Last weekend we headed down to Cornwall for a short break at Seaview Holiday Village near Looe.
We were sent with a challenge though!
As a blogger, lugging a great big camera around with me is part of the job, however Seaview wanted to show us how easy it is to record our holiday moments by just reaching into our pockets for our smart phones.
Just because pictures are taken on a phone does not mean they have to be of poor quality and with this in mind Seaview Holiday Village in Cornwall teamed up with Instagram photography experts to help their guests take amazing holiday pictures. They then challenged holidaymakers to take 500 amazing photos on their smartphones over the summer using the hashtag #SeaviewPix with the favourite winning £500 towards their next Seaview Holiday Village holiday.
Seaview Holiday Village has a large range of static caravans and chalets, including pet friendly options, and is in the perfect position to explore all that East Cornwall has to offer, with picturesque villages like Looe, tourist destinations like Torbay and is also close to the city of Plymouth.
We were staying in a static caravan which enjoyed commanding views across rolling fields towards Talland Bay and the sea.
It really was a stunning location and we were really impressed by the caravan and the facilities that Seaview Holiday Park had on offer.
I have to say it is the best equipped caravan we have ever stayed in. We a double room and ensuite and two smaller bedrooms with twin beds, a family shower room and kitchen / living area. Everything was provided with the exception of towels, food and cleaning products.
The park itself has a heated indoor pool, games room and playgrounds, so there is plenty to enjoy during the day. At night they have food, fun and cabaret in the clubhouse, and entertainment from visiting and star acts who perform alongside their own team.
We did have a small issue with flies in our caravan, but the staff couldn’t have been more friendly and helpful and did their very best to resolve the situation for us.
We were also invited to test out Seymac’s App for Cornwall, which is a free to download app that has easy to search information and discount codes for local attractions and restaurants.
There were some brilliant discounts including an impressive £15 off Adrenalin Quarry, but sadly we were out-voted by the kids and found some more child-friendly places to visit, including Springfields Farm Park, a boat ride around Plymouth Harbour and down the Tamar River and The National Marine Aquarium.
To see my smartphone photographs from our visit to Seaview Holiday Village, search the hashtag #SeaviewPix on my instagram pages chelseamamma and Are We Nearly There Yet?
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Last weekend we were invited to the 30th Birthday Gala for Moors Valley Railway.
It wasn’t until the event that I discovered that its origins went back to 1980 when Jim Haylock set up a miniature railway at Tucktonia Miniature Theme Park in Christchurch – somewhere I have very fond memories of visiting as a child.
The miniature railway then moved to the Old Kings Dairy Farm at Moors Valley five years later and opened to the public on 26th July 1986.
Moors Valley Country Park is somewhere we have visited regularly since my eldest children were small as there is so much to do for all ages and it remains a firm favourite with all the family.
Sebastian is train mad, so every visit we have to take a trip on the railway which is a recreation in miniature of a traditional British Railway complete with stations, locomotives, rolling stock, bridges, tunnel, signal boxes, carriage sheds and engineering workshops – in fact the Moors Valley Railway is the south’s longest, fully signalled narrow gauge 71/4 steam railway with the main ride being a mile long.
For the Gala celebrations not only did we get taken on a very special loop of the Moors Valley Railway, but we got to look behind the scenes too.
In its 30th Moors Valley Railway has carried over 3 million passengers, over 100,000 each year. A typical train consists of a barrier wagon, 11 coaches and a guards van and can carry around 65 passengers.
The workshop was fascinating as it is a true main line in miniature and has seen the construction of over 20 steam and two diesel locomotives, many of which were out on display.
Of course the day wasn’t all about the trains as the kids were keen to explore the other things the park has to offer.
Moors Valley is somewhere I always recommend to visitors to Hampshire and Dorset as there is just so much to do with over 1000 acres to explore. There is forest trails (nature, play and story), kids parks, cycle tracks, an 18 hole golf course, fishing, the railway and picnic areas plus Go Ape, the award-winning tree-top adventure course with Tarzan swings, zip wires and Segways to try your hand at.
The Rangers also arrange over 300 special events throughout the year, ranging from nature walks, fishing lessons and off-road cycling to miniature railway events, art and photographic exhibitions and golf coaching. For children at the moment there is the Young Ranger challenge which involves 40 exciting challenges to complete and Joanne from CharlieMoos and her family have been busily ticking them off.
After burning some energy off in the park, we, and the CharlieMoos crew tried our hand at some Go Ape fun. Keep your eyes peeled for a post coming soon ………….
Special events at Moors Valley coming up soon are:
Did you know that it is the 80th anniversary of the formation of RAF Fighter Command?
On Sunday we were invited to The Imperial War Museum at Duxford for the Meet the Fighters air show which highlighted Duxford’s role as a wartime fighter station.
We love airshows and were disappointed to miss Bournemouth Air Fest this year, so we braved the 3 hour journey from home to see how the nation has been defended from air attack since 1936 and the vital importance of fighters to winning control of the largest battlefront on earth.
We are used to watching planes from the beach, so I was a little concerned that there would not be enough to keep the kids occupied for a full day at Duxford but I needn’t have worried as there was plenty to keep them interested both inside and out.
We started with the day at the public flight line where we got to see the planes on the ground before they took to the air. Plane loving Sebastian was in his element, bounding from one plane to the next.
There was a huge variety of aircraft to see on the ground with the crowd pleaser Flying Fortress Sally B, Vampires, Hawker Fury, Spitfires, Hurricanes and some of the oldest Bi-Planes and Tri-Planes.
Flying didn’t begin until 1pm so there was plenty of time in the morning to explore the museum and all the planes on the ground. Airspace was a particular hit with Isaac and Eliza with interactive exhibits which explained how planes and helicopters flew.
In AirSpace you can also get up-close to some of the most famous aircraft in the world, including the Lancaster, Spitfire, Concorde and Vulcan and for an extra £6 we bought boarding passes so we could go inside 10 of the aircraft for a look around.
Back outside we started watching the air display from the children’s park, which had a huge wooden plane inspired playframe along with bouncers, slides and climbing equipment.
Although Duxford doesn’t have the huge variety of aircraft that Bournemouth has, it wins for me with the information provided and the fact that you can see the aircraft on the ground before they fly, see them take-off and climb into the sky to perform and even have their own air battle complete with pyrotechnics both in the air and on the ground.
There were two highlights of the show for me.
The Sally B is always a firm favourite of mine but nothing could beat the massed Spitfires formation which consisted of twelve Supermarine Spitfires and four rare Mark I Spitfires that not only took off in formation which literally gave me goosebumps, but they flew in partnership in a magnificent flypast before performing some incredible aerobatics. Now I know where the famous Red Arrows manoeuvre the ‘Spitfire Roll’ comes from.
They all landed and taxied back to their position right in front of us with Sebastian waving excitedly to each and everyone, they all waved back too!
Our second favourite were the mighty Red Arrows who closed the show as only they can with some fabulous new moves that we have not seen before.
Although busy, with 15,000 people on site, it did not feel busy and the only queue we had, was for some ice cream. There were plenty of food, merchandise and refreshment stalls to suit every taste and the museum was open too if you needed to cool off.
My top tip would be to take a picnic blanket and / or fold up chairs to secure a good viewing point on the grass and get there nice and early to explore the museums before the flying starts in the afternoon.
We didn’t get to see everything the museum had to offer and will be hope to be back again soon.
Air Show dates for 2017 are:
IWM May Air Show: 27th & 29th May (Bank Holiday Weekend)
Flying Legends Air Show: 8th & 9th July
The Duxford Air Show: 23rd & 24th September
Tickets will be on sale later this year and to be the first to get yours sign up to their enews letter at iwm.org.uk/enews.
Disclaimer: We were guests of the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, for the purpose of a review. All thoughts and opinions are my own
