Forest fun at Alice Holt

We’ve seen so many great places recently including Alice Holt, a beautiful woodland setting cared for by the Forestry Commission. It was once the centre of a Roman pottery industry with hundreds of kilns producing pots of all shapes and sizes over a period of four centuries.

Located in Surrey, Alice Holt offers walking, cycling trails and play areas. It’s home to Go Ape where you can enjoy being adventurous high above the forest floor on zip wires, Tarzan swings and crossings. There’s also Go Ape Tree Top Junior which includes tree-to-tree crossings and a zip finale.

With POD not yet three, we tend to opt for the shorter waymarked trials of which there are several to chose from. The Habitat Trail for example is a 0.6 mile family walk with giant wooden animal play sculptures and the Willows Green Trail is 0.5 miles with a steep section.

Both of theses trails are short enough for POD to walk and explore her surroundings. On this occasion we provided her with a list of things to find in the forest – an acorn, bracken, a brown leaf, a stick, a blackberry and a fir cone. A task our toddler felt was necessary to undertake with her sunglasses on.

The Easy Access Trail at Alice Holt is a double looped route which enables visitors to experience a wide range of contrasting woodland habitats. Winding paths take you through dense conifer plantations and a majestic stand of mature Scots pine. The smell was just amazing.

Having taken a detour through the wonderful “deep dark wood”, we hit open woodland. Used for den building events, it was a great place for POD to hide, climb tree stumps and kick leaves.

Putting our heads through the holes was highly entertaining too especially when Daddy made lots of silly faces!

After collecting more leaves and twigs, we had a short food stop before spending time in the wooden play area. There POD got to explore before deciding she’d climb the ropes up the side of a pirate ship. Not only did she reach the top she did it in double quick time too. Not a bad effort for a toddler!

Alice Holt’s Habitat Trail has a rather impressive Totem Pole to admire before reaching the first play sculpture – an owl. It’s a great structure that enables children to climb to the tail and look down from the top of it’s head before using a fireman’s pole to reach the ground.

We then came across a Woodpecker Tree with a hollow trunk before reaching the bath and moth climbing walls. Although POD wanted to climb everything in sight, her favourite by far was the Giants Play Area where she got to sit in a giant’s chair!

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