Moors Valley Country Park
Moors Valley Country Park, nr Bournemouth
Moors Valley Country Park is about an hours drive from Basingstoke towards Bournemouth, assuming there is no traffic on the M3 and M27.
It took us about an hour to get there, in September 2014, with no traffic.
I’ve been meaning for us to visit Moors Valley Country Park for ages, but when we were down in Bournemouth recently on holiday, we finally had the time to visit!
I can safely say that it’s brilliant!
Way better than other country parks that I’ve been too.
I was so impressed with the way the park is set out and how much there is to do.
We only stayed for an hour and a half as we popped in on our way home and Miss NHM was already tired, but we had a fantastic time and I can’t wait to go and visit for longer next time so we can properly explore.
Play
There is loads to do in Moors Vallye Country Park. Far more than I expected.
We parked in the car park that was closest to the entrance (not the first car park, but a small car park near the Go Ape building) and stumbled across the Gruffalo!
and a totem pole!
Miss NHM found this fallen tree trunk which was hollowed out for her to climb through:
We spent a lot of time wondering through the forest, past Go Ape (which is spread over a large area, much larger than Bracknell’s Go Ape) towards the Park Explore.
We then went into the forest and discovered LOTS of different areas to play on.
I went on and explored the little hut which was awesome, but we didn’t want Miss NHM to become covered in sand, so quickly avoided this and went to find the pond maze.
This was my favourite structure by far.
There were loads others, but we didn’t have time to explore unfortunately.
I love this pond maze. We spent ages running through it!
Miss NHM wanted to climb up this, but at 3.5 years old, I didn’t think she was big enough. Would be perfect for older children though.
We stumbled across this spider’s web.
Miss NHM LOVED the wooden spider and spent about 20 minutes playing in here and exploring.
We were getting hungry by this time and headed back to the restaurant.
After the restaurant we went over to the play park to explore and discovered that there is a small steam train. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go on it this time, but it did look very cool.
The train rides looked brilliant!
There was a lovely big lake here too, that we didn’t get time to explore :-(.
Tips
Don’t park in the main car park, keep following the car park round so that you go past the disabled parking and then park in the smaller car park near Go Ape.
It means you don’t have as far to walk and it’s easy to get to the main area.
They have a Gruffalo’s child trail on over winter.
Food
We had cake and hot chocolates for our mid morning break and it was actually a really yummy hot chocolate.
The cafe area is really large and has indoor and outdoor seating and has a very comprehensive menu.
There is also an ice cream shop which opened as we were leaving.
Facilities
Are really good. All eco toilets too, which I was impressed at.
There are lots and lots of picnic benches dotted across the park and a few covered areas too.
Baby Facilities
There are baby changing facilities but you need to get the key from the main reception.
There are also lots of highchairs in the restaurant.
Parking
Is expensive but you don’t have to pay for any other costs. You can easily spend the whole day here, so I feel that the parking is probably value for money.
Is comprehensive and there is extra overflow car parking for when it’s needed.
Prices
There are no entry charges but you will need to pay for parking.
If you have a large family, this could be a bargain day out!
Rating out of 5
I’m going to give Moors Valley Country Park 5 out of 5 because it way exceeded my expectations and we had such a brilliant time there.
We hardly explored the place at all, but you can see that we covered a lot in our 1.5 hours there.
I can’t wait to visit next time and explore even more!