#CountryKids on a Mini Ramble

I missed posting to this linky when away so great to be back! There may be a couple of French additions to add when I catch up.. But in the meanwhile this is what we got up to today.

A few months ago I was having a chat on Twitter with a relatively local lady and bemoaning the lack of family friendly walks with our local Ramblers. I have been on a few with my mum but my children are always the only under 18s and the walks are geared to grown ups. This is fair enough as the majority of local members don't have young children but to encourage new members or retain old members who have children then it would be good to have family friendly walks.

So my mum got permission from the local committee to run a trial of Mini Rambles over the summer holidays. These are aimed at families with children aged 4-10 and are of a suitable distance (about 4 miles) and designed to be taken slowly!

Today was the first one on the estate at Sizergh Castle with a meet up in the car park. Despite lots of advertising in the end it was only us and my Twitter friend who turned up! It was a lovely day for a walk so a shame more people didn't come along:

My children enjoyed the not too steep hills that we walked up:

There was time to stop and discuss why some of the sheep in the fields were yellow and others weren't:

We were also lucky to see lots of beautiful butterflies around:

Then we had a snack stop by St John's, Helsington with views across the Lyth Valley to the fells: 

The children couldn't resist the stone stile into the church yard:

On the return walk to the castle by daughter spotted some butterflies getting frisky! Whilst I was trying to photograph them a second male tried to get a piece of the action and there was an aerial combat to win the right to the lady:

Towards the end of the walk we went to visit some hides put up to observe waterfowl. Unfortunately there wasn't much to see:

Back at the castle it was time for a well earned trip to the tea room! All in all a very relaxed way to walk and perfect for us as a family. The next mini ramble is at the start of September so here is hoping that more people join in.