Visiting The Gruffalo Trail At Thorndon Country Park

Visiting The Gruffalo Trail At Thorndon Country Park

Before Little E started school she was set some summer holiday homework. This term they will be reading the book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. The homework set was to go on your own hunt to share your experience with your new friends. We decided to take her to the Gruffalo Trail at Thorndon Country Park as we knew both children would enjoy it. We have visited the Gruffalo trail a few times but we knew Little E would be too young to remember those trips.

visiting the gruffalo trail at thorndon country park

Our Visit To The Gruffalo Trail

We visited Thorndon Country Park on a Sunday afternoon. Since our last visit, the car park has been updated and more spaces added which made the parking so much easier. Our first stop was at the shop to buy a Gruffalo trail map. The maps are 50p and have also improved in quality since our last visits. To be honest you can easily find the Gruffalo characters without the map but I wanted Little E to have something to take into school with her. Little E loved the map and wouldn’t let it go for quite a few days after our visit.

The first character to find on the Gruffalo trail is the Squirrel. He is very easy to spot in a tree near the car park. You then move in a square around the forest to find the other characters.

The mouse was the second character to find.

gruffalo trail mouse thorndon country park

Fox was the third character on the map to find.

gruffalo trail fox thorndon country park
gruffalo trail fox little e thorndon country park

Owl was next, he can be found high up in the trees.

owl

The snake was our next character to find.

snake
snake head
snake ethan
gruffalo trail snake thorndon country park

We have very fond memories of the snake as Ethan got very vocal around him the first time we visited. You can see that in the video below…

After spending some time with the snake we made our way to find the Gruffalo’s child.

gruffalo trail gruffalos child thorndon country park
gruffalo trail gruffalos child thorndon country park

Our last visit was to see the main man himself, the Gruffalo.

gruffalo trail gruffalo thorndon country park

Ethan started to recite the Gruffalo’s rhyme from the book. A book that he was obsessed with but we haven’t read to him for quite a few years. Considering he was non-verbal during this obsession he remembered the rhyme word for word.

gruffalo trail gruffalo thorndon country park
gruffalo trail gruffalo spines thorndon country park

He has purple spines all over his back…

The children both loved their visit to the Gruffalo and have both asked to return again. I captured our visit on video too so that Little E could show her new classmates.

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