#CountryKids All England Stone Skimming Championships

After Parkrun yesterday my son decided he wanted to enter the All England Stone Skimming Championships which were being held in the same park. There was quite a queue to sign up as the competition was open to all ages with no qualification. At £3 for an adult and £1 for an under 11 it was a well priced event too. Our first task was to choose from the selection of skimmers that the South Cumbria Rivers Trust had supplied:

Its all to do with the size of your hand and how they fit when you are preparing to throw them! Then we had to wait to take our turn at skimming and first of all we watched some of the seasoned experts; such as Ron Long The Old Tosser who has written an excellent post explaining how to skim stones.

Next up was Gareth Twamley who with his first stone broke the local record with an awesome 88m!!

The slightly choppy waters (and occasional straying waterfowl) weren't the ideal conditions for stone skimming:

Not a cotton wool family!

I have always been one to encourage my children to be adventurous and take risks within reason. Whether this is body boarding in the sea, Westmorland wrestling, or adventure trails and completing the National Trust's 50 things before 11 3/4. Of course many of these have resulted in bumps and scrapes along the way but it never puts the children or I off from our adventures.

Last weekend my children went climbing trees in the local park. What I hadn't mentioned in the previous post was what happened to my daughter about 10 minutes after she posed for this photo:

Whilst attempting to get back down she somehow managed to slip and fell from that height. She broke the fall by landing on her elbow, but seemed OK afterwards if a little sore, as she carried on having fun! 

#CountryKids in Hawkshead and Wray Castle

It's only just a week since we went to Wray Castle but having a family friend needing entertaining today we headed back over to the far side of Windermere via the car ferry:

First of all we drove to Hawkshead and had a hot drink and a cake in a cafe before heading into the village for a wander. I spotted the Beatrix Potter gallery so we all dug out the National Trust cards and popped in:

#CountryKids Sizergh Castle Woodland Play Trail

Regular readers will know that we are big fans of our nearest National Trust property Sizergh Castle. We have got our membership fee back just in trips here this year with special events and 50 Things challenges as well as using it as a base for walks. One thing it hadn't had was a play area for bigger kids. So when I heard about the new Woodland Play Trail I was keen to go try it out. 

The first challenge was to find out where it was! Cunningly its all part of trail to discover how to get there. The children had to read the clue then follow directions:

The signs took us on a safe route in the car park passing the signs for the Great British Walk:

It was pretty obvious when we reached the actual start of the trail:

My children were so keen to check it all out I had difficulty getting them to slow down enough to get photographs. I was just in time to catch my son going through the tunnel:

Luckily grown ups don't have to crawl as they have kindly put in a Wussy Parent Route:

Once in the woodland itself there were more clues and challenges to follow:

The trickiest bit of the route came next and you had to use a rope to safely descend a slightly steeper slope: 

Next up was a log path, as you can see my son wimped out and decided not to balance on it:

Maybe he had read the warning sign:

What was nice about the route was that I could see the children ahead of me without having to be right on top of them:

Walking on stumps seemed to prove harder than log walking as it slowed them down a little bit:

Some of the clues gave us a chance to look at interesting things (well I looked any way!):

Parts of the course were more simply constructed with these branch arches to pass through (some of these were quite low for an adult!):

The people building the course had gone to great lengths to put in things like this Branch House:

I bet the woodland will look even more superb in the spring when the flowers come out:

And the reward for getting to the end:

Of course we did have to climb back up the mini cliff to get back to the castle. The children made this look easy but I was burdened with handbag and camera:

All in all a fun way to spend time outdoors with the children and to get them active without too much effort on your part! 

#CountryKids Catching Mayflies #50Things

We were lucky to be in the park tonight when the mayflies belatedly made an appearance. Even luckier we had one of the children's 50 things bug kits in the car! So the children tried to humanely catch some mayflies:

Once safely caught in the catcher it was a chance to look at their unusual shape:

They found catching them easy enough to have 2 in the viewing pot:

 Then they let them go again as they only live for such a short while.

#CountryKids Out in the sun

We have been making the most of the sunny weather to have lots of outdoor fun this week. First of all we had a couple of hours after school enjoying a picnic tea and fun in Staveley Park. I actually remembered the children's swim things so my daughter could have fun in the river:

The water was pretty cold but she still seemed to be enjoying herself! Her brother was more sensible and stayed on dry land to play hide and seek:

We were having such a lovely time we ended up spending another 20 minutes in the playground instead of going home:

A lovely evening! Today we had an almost completely outside day in Grasmere and Fell Foot. The children came to cheer me on in the Grasmere Gallop and afterwards had fun in the buttercup meadow:

Then we went onto Fell Foot to a party and my children both added to their 50 things list. My son got brave enough to climb a tree:

Both children also had their first go in a kayak. My son went out with me but my daughter went solo:

All in all a perfect Country Kids day!

#CountryKids Wray Castle National Trust #50things

Yesterday we headed for the far side of Windermere via the chain ferry to go to Wray Castle. This is one of National Trust properties offering plenty of the 50 things activities. 

The castle itself is a Victorian take on what a medieval castle should look like:

My son had been there before with my parents so he knew exactly where to go once inside the castle to find the rooms dedicated to entertaining children. First of all a chance to play sword fight and dress up:

Next to this was a room with books and bean bags followed by a room they could make paper crowns in. I think my son and his friend stayed sword fighting for most of the visit! Meanwhile I left the grandparents taking turns to supervise and went to explore.. Turns out that dotted throughout the castle there were all sorts of other kiddy distractions that mine completely missed:

The castle is in the process of major renovations having been used as a training centre for Merchant Seaman, a Youth Hostel and as an office. This is going to be long term project and will need lots of money to complete. Its good to be able to see how they are doing so far:

The final bit of fun for the children was the room with the foam blocks for building a castle:

Of course a collapsed castle was a big temptation to leap on to:

After a recuperating hot drink and cake in the little cafe we headed outside into the sunshine to the 50 things activities area:

There was a dead tree to balance on (#18):

A rope swing to swing on (#19):

And den building (#4):

There are 22 more activities you can do on the site but I had to take my friend home whilst my children went down to the lake with my parents to do stone skimming (#5). We will have to go back and see which of the others we can tick off. My daughter seems to have done a large percentage of them with 2 years left to complete them. How are your children doing on their list?

More photos of our day on Flickr