Highlights of Cornwall with Kids: Part IV Glendurgan Gardens

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson

While we have read about Trelissick Garden and had it on our radar for a visit one day, during a chat with one of the nice people we met suggestion we visit the sub-tropical garden Glendurgan instead. We were told tales of a terrific maze. The kids are obsessed with mazes, even the pen and paper kind, after our visit to Hampton Court. Even though Glendurgan was way further south that we intended to travel, we just couldn't pass up a good maze.

Wonderful laurel maze

Glendurgan turned out to be way more than a terrific maze and we had such a lovely day here and could have spent even longer if time allowed.

Enormous Tulip Tree planted here in 1830's



The National Trust staff were trialling alternatives to the traditional children's trails, and I have to admit after completing quite a few of these now the kids are getting pretty tired of them. So it was lovely that the kids could go through a box of alternative activities and choose the one they liked.

They both chose an activity that required them to find and pick something in the garden representing each colour of the rainbow. They were give a little fan of pages with double sided sticky tape so that each little leaf or flower could be attached and when complete they had a rainbow of colours. In our case it was almost a rainbow as we were unable to find a blue flower but they kids were very happy despite this.

Glendurgan Garden was created on a hill leading down to Durgan cove on the Helford River.  As we left the gift shop and started off down the path the first plants that we saw were familiar plants from home. I must say we failed to find any Australian plants at the Eden Project but here were Bottle Brush and Grevillia growing beautifully. 

 This is a fabulous garden for a visit with children. They have organised it such a way that after each short and very beautiful walk you come to something to capture the kids attentions. With the map in the kids hands we were directed to the maze straight away.

 

Once we had started into the maze it was impossible to convince the kids to stay with us this time. They were off running like the wind and deliberately going different ways than us. Needless to say they found the centre of the maze some time before us, and at the last minute Rob decided to try a different path from the one I was taking and after meeting the kids in the middle we had a wait awhile for their dad.

The maze had taken some time and we enjoyed having a rest in the middle, deciding that it was time for our picnic lunch. The kids never want to sit still for long so they soon informed us that they would be the first out of the maze and off they went. We remembered having seen a short cut exit from the maze and quickly made our way out to wait for them this time.

We looked at the map and decided to investigate the point labelled "the giants stride" and discovered a fantastic Maypole looking swing. We all enjoyed having a turn and chatting with some grandparents who lived nearby who had brought their little grandchildren for a play.

The little girl playing on the swing with us talked about a visit to "the Bamboo Bridge" before going home, so later when were deciding which path to take the kids suggested we visit the Bamboo Bridge too.

When we arrived at the Bamboo Bridge, in a beautiful gully surrounded by fern trees, Miss Emma, aged almost nine, decided that the name was all wrong as the bit you stand on is some other kind of wood and so it should be called the "wooden bridge with a bamboo handrail". In either case this beautiful part of the garden was almost at the bottom of the hill and the kids loved the idea of visit to the beach, not for a swim seeing it was perhaps 10 degrees that day, but just to visit. "We promise not to get wet". You know, I've heard that before and they always manage to get wet anyway.

The cove at Durgan looked like it had been hit hard in the recent storms and a team of NT people were clearing the debris off the road. This little village is made up of NT and private holiday homes. We all agreed that this would make a lovely location for a holiday, though I would prefer inland Cutmadoc, where we were staying, during the winter months.

We wandered down onto the beach, collecting shells and skimming stones and investigating the rock pools.

We never seem to have everyone's wellington boots when we need them. Lots of other people had the same idea but looked much better equipped. Never mind, we made plans to visit the beautiful beaches close to our home away from home in Bournemouth when we get back.

I have never really thought of the beach as somewhere to visit in winter. For me the idea of the beach in Australia is somewhere to go on a summers day for a quick swim before the day is too hot, or later in the afternoon when it's started to cool off. It's got to be at least 30degrees before I will agree to go, but always enjoy it much more than I expect to. I guess I'm just not much of a beach person, but this was a lot of fun.

We could easily have spent a number of hours here but it occurred to me that as we were so far south it would be a shame not to see a few places in South Cornwall, at least for a drive by. Mind you it was already after three o'clock with a twenty minute walk back to the gift shop and car park before us, which we new would be made longer by looking for orange, red and purple flowers missing from the kids activity.

So having left our mark on beautiful Durgan cove we decided it was time to head back to the car and head off for a scenic drive. As you can guess the kids were otherwise occupied and not at all keen to be leaving.



When we eventually left we visited lovely places I will tell you about in another post. Emma has just come into the room, sadly covered in over 300 chicken pox. Seeing me blogging about Glendurgan her response was "oh that place I love it there, can we go there again?". Obviously the memories of great days outlast the memories of long drives. Seeing as it is 308km, a drive of over four hours from here, sadly we won't get another chance to visit.

 Before signing off Emma also reminded me of a funny thing that happened on the way back. As we walked through the lovely garden Emma caught sight of something that looked like a phone or ipod laying near a tree on the grass a little way away from the path. Emma was hesitant about leaving the path and walking on the grass but we wanted to make sure that it was handed in if it was something important so she ran over to it. I made the comment that it would be funny if it was a fallen over sign saying "keep of the grass" and Emma said "it is". We were all rolling around laughing until we realised she just meant it was a fallen over sign, but it was just the botanical name of the tree.

 And there I leave you for today, still needing to write up our visits to Trerice, Buckland Abbey in Devon and all the little places with visited on our way too and from visits, not to mention our four fabulous days in Wales. I guess I will have lots of time this week with no school runs while Emma gets over these awful Chicken Pox, perhaps I can even convince her to get started on her travel diary.