THERE’S a little-known adventure play area in the UK with six lakes, a zipline and a nature reserve.
Located in a former sand and gravel quarry in Northamptonshire, Stanwick Lakes is now a nature reserve.
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Spanning a whopping 750 acres, the site has plenty of family-friendly attractions including a forest zip wire.
Other family-friendly activities include an area called Adventure Play, which is surrounded by a moat.
The play area is filled with plenty of attractions to keep young visitors entertained, including a water play area with a small stream and water wheels.
There’s also a sand play area, a climbing tower, a giant slide, tunnels, stepping stones and even a sunken ship.
Families will also enjoy the adventure trail, which has climbing rocks, a traversing wall, a rope bridge over the water, hexagonal swings, climbable animal structures, balance beams and even a double zip line.
The assault course is just a five-minute walk from the visitor centre, which has an indoor cafe and an outdoor terrace serving a range of hot and cold snacks.
Stanwick Lakes is also home to plenty of wildlife and interesting habitats, including reedbeds, lakes, woodland, wetland and grassland.
Butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies are routinely spotted at Stanwick Lakes too. ,
Otters and Muntjac (small deer) are also occasionally spotted inside the nature reserve.
Stanwick Lakes has been praised on TripAdvisor, with a 4.5/5 star rating from nearly 1,000 reviews.
One person wrote: “We visit Stanwick Lakes fairly frequently and we love it! Beautiful surroundings, a great variety of species, many different well maintained trails with loads to see and lots to do for kids, a huge and well built play park, cafe.”
Someone else said: “A brilliant day out for all the family. We have 4 children of different ages and there was something for us all to do. The park was the best we’ve been to in a long time and the assault course was brilliant fun.”
While a third person wrote: “Really lovely place. Beautiful place to walk, lots of wildlife around and super friendly staff in the visitor centre
There are plenty of other outdoor adventure attractions in the UK where families can enjoy being in nature.
Other adventure parks in the UK
One of those places is Adventure Wood – a newly-opened attraction in Scarborough that’s part of North Yorkshire Water Park.
The on-land adventure park features a wide range of activities like axe throwing, archery, a low ropes obstacle course and bushcraft workshops.
Both the axe-throwing and archery workshops are led by experienced instructors, with each session costing £18 per person for one hour.
Last month, Go Ape opened its 37th site in a forest in Northamptonshire.
Go Ape Salcey Forest opened to the public in March, and the site features two treetop rope courses, including Treetop Adventure – an hour-long course with a series of obstacle.
And one woodland theme park in the UK has no rides or technology.
BeWILDerwood first opened in 2007 in Norfolk, followed by a second park in 2021 in Cheshire.
The sprawling play parks are based on a series of fantasy books by author Tom Blofeld.
Within the technology-free attraction, families will find slides, storytelling stages, zip lines and den-building activities.
Five new water attractions opening in the UK next year
- Therme Manchester will have 25 swimming pools, 25 water slides and an indoor beach.
- Modern Surf Manchester will be a surfing lagoon offering lessons to both beginners and experts.
- Chessington World of Adventures waterpark is set to have wave, infinity and spa pools as well as waterslides and cabanas.
- The Cove Resort, Southport is likely to have a water lagoon and a thermal spa with steam rooms and saunas.
- The Seahive, Deal plans to be the “surfing wellness resort” in the UK.
Meanwhile, this new UK attraction was inspired by a famous royal and has a play tree, zipline and go-karts.
Here are the top 10 outdoor activities Brits want to try out from sailing to archey.
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