Hunting for treasure in the forest

We love Alice Holt Forest. Located in Hampshire, just a few miles south of Farnham, this wonderful forest is part of the South Downs National Park. It’s just one of the many forests managed by the Forestry Commission. Whether we’re following The Gruffalo, Stick Man or one of the trails, Alice Holt is always good fun and a great place to blow away a few post Easter cobwebs. On this particular day, five year old POD decided we’d embark on our very own treasure hunt.

She spent some time at home drawing a map for us to follow with the ‘treasure’ we had to find along the way. This included the sun, trees, grass, leaves, pine cones, a girl, a Mummy, a pink flower and a rainbow. Once she was finished we set off with a pencil to see what we could find. The rainbow was looking unlikely from the get go as it was a fairly sunny day but we were hopeful of finding everything else. Donning her owl ear muffs, wellies and her super snug Saltrock Clothing fleece, we followed one of the trails with POD eagerly ticking each item off her list as we discovered it.

Being at Alice Holt meant there was much exploring to do along the way, looking for pirates was hugely important as you’d expect as well as scanning the trees to see if any animals were hiding in them. It didn’t take us too long to find everything we needed, with the exception of the flower and the rainbow, which meant POD could focus on climbing again.

First up was the woodpecker where POD took it upon herself to make all kinds of expressions through one of the little windows. She loves it here so she was up and down like a yoyo before standing on a wooden toadstool to do a bow. Much to the amusement of those that passed by. Next came lots of climbing on the man-made structures like the bat and the owl, where she also got to head down a fireman’s pole, as well as scaling nearby trees. Sometimes the best things in life are the simplest aren’t they?

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