Easter Fun

Easter is upon us, so soon! The mild winter has passed quickly bringing with it fair weather, some lovely sunny days and a few well earned days off for many. National Trust rangers have been busy over the winter months working on an extension to the play trail to entertain the young and old at Wray Castle. See the previous blog entry when construction first started on the trail [A new play trail for Wray Castle].

New features added include a monstrous scramble board. Be sure to visit in a few months time when those timbers aren’t so new and grippy! 

There are two ropes to help you up the scramble board... race  you! 

Follow the trail through the living birch arches, balance on the fallen cherry tree, navigate your way over the stepping stones, hide away in the big den, or better still build your own even better den in the freshly woodchipped ‘den building’ area. 

Lots of space for new dens in here!

Here, rangers are constructing a slackline with platforms at either end.

Have you mastered the slackline yet?

It just goes to show though that play items need not be fixed down. Timber set aside for the slackline platforms had been used for play by some creative play trail users! 

Fun can be had in many different ways...

There are lots of other Easter themed activities going on at the castle too this weekend. Check out the Cadburys Easter Egg trail where proceeds to go to charitable causes and you get a yummy chocolate egg as a prize.

The forecast is looking great. So why not give the castle a visit this weekend? It will be perfect weather to get out cycling. Did you know you can get there completely off-road from Ambleside and from the Windermere car ferry. Why not leave the car at Bowness and get the ferry over to the west shore of Windermere. Bring your bike (or hire one) and cycle away from the traffic along the lake shore. If you have a mountain bike, you could take an OS map and head up onto Claife Heights as well to make a day of it. You can get fantastic views up and down the length of Windermere. Look out for Claife Station opening up in the next few months to recreate those Victorian views.

Don’t have a bike? Take a leisurely stroll. It only takes about an hour to walk to the castle from the car ferry or get a boat directly to the castle from Ambleside. Or why not cycle from Ambleside, it is off-road most of the way and takes you through some delightful countryside with views over to the Langdale Pikes and the Coniston fells on a clear day. There is also a very good bus service running from Hawkshead and Ambleside. Check out the Go Lakes website for more information on all the different sustainable transport options. Please avoid bringing your car; the castle car park gets very full quickly.

Enjoy eating those chocolate eggs and spend some time burning off those calories by making your way to Wray Castle under your own steam (and have fun on the new play trail when you get there!). Have a Happy Easter and make the most of the beautiful Spring weather!