Today’s day out with Mummy, Daddy and our 2.5yo Little Legs was to Eureka! in Halifax. A relatively short drive from Leeds so we only got a minimal nap from LL on the way (mostly in the car park when we got there – £3 for 3 hours, which is plenty of time for a good visit)
Under ones are free, then prices are staggered by age up to adult. We paid a little over £30 for us, but for the entrance price we get to come back as much as we want for the year. This visit was after our previous annual ticket had expired – we found ourselves visiting three times in the year we had tickets last time, albeit with a much smaller child!
Our first port of call as we arrived early afternoon was the spacious indoor picnic area. We’ve been to the cafe before and found it too busy (no fault of the museum’s) and a little on the dear side, so a picnic is the way forward for our trips now. They also have good space outside too, however today was a little Autumnal for a Dad who’d insisted he didn’t need a coat.
For those who haven’t visited before, I’ll try to summarise what there is there:
- an area dedicated to sound, under the premise that your child has to educate an alien as to how sound works
- a big pretend play village with a bank, post office, supermarket, utility works and garage. These all have plenty of outfits for kids to play pretend at a variety of jobs, with the bank also allowing the chance to play safe-cracker!
- a giant house with good explanations throughout as to how things work (a see through flushing toilet for example)
- two small soft play areas for pre-walkers
- a play hospital
- an exploration of the senses
- a craft room for under 5s which has colouring and collage bits and bobs in there for visitors included in admission
- two “digital” spaces with temporary electric exhibitions
There’s bits and bobs between these also.
It’s a children’s museum and everything is interactive and at child’s height. Perhaps a few things were a little inaccessible for my pre-schooler however they cannot pitch everything at everyone.
They have a few adult only nights throughout the year if you wanted to do a reccy (you cannot visit during normal hours without child) but as long as you’ve a child under 10 (at a very rough estimate from a dad with only a child under 3) I’m certain fun would be had.
My only complaint today was that whilst they had a special “animal” weekend, the falconry shows were announced on the tannoy shortly before the shows rather than clearly timetabled, which meant we couldn’t plan the day around these, and the signposting for the animal petting went unnoticed by me and mummy.
These are lines that this dad hears several times a week. Little legs loves this book, and whilst at 2 she’s a way off reading, she could recite this story to you without pause or hesitation. As soon as I heard about this hidden gem 40 minutes from Leeds at Anglers Country Park in Wintersett, we were set to go with equal enthusiasm. In fact, despite this book being a staple part of the nursery library for more than half of little legs’ life, somehow I’d never heard of this treasure of a walk!
After parking up (for free) the first port of call was the visitor centre. We knew it was cash only, so had £2 in hand for an activity pack. This had all you needed for the walk – map, crayons, page for rubbings, a quiz for finding letters around the lake plus more to do at home.
It’s a 2 mile flat walk. We did it with friends and a pram, but it was muddy in places. Took about two hours with stops to play and snack. Around the lake are wooden statues of the characters and metal plaques to do some rubbings.
Cafe is shut in winter but there were plenty of picnic tables, plus a little hut selling hot drinks was set up.
