5 Top Tips Visiting The Gruffalo Trail In Gisburn Forest

I love Gisburn  Forest but it’s years since I’ve been walking through the heart of the beautiful Forest of Bowland.  I’ve been wanting to take James for ages, as he loves the Gruffalo stories, and running wild outside! so this was the perfect day to do both. I did a little research prior to going to get the very best out of our adventure into the woods 🙂  Here are my 5 top tips visiting the Gruffalo Trail in Gisburn forest.

As we arrived all excited ready for our Gruffalo Trail adventure through Gisburn Forest we couldn’t have picked a better day it was absolutely beautiful. There’s a huge car park so no problems finding a parking space. Then it was off to the Hub to collect our Gruffalo Activity pack for the trail. As you approach the Hub there’s a lovely little play area outside for the little ones, which James immediately ran straight for the wooden drums, found a stick and started  banging the drums to his hearts content 🙂

James loved the trail as soon as we set off he was so excited to see the animals and as we opened the activity pack he kissed the stickers, so cute! The extra activity cards were great to get James involved with all the animal characters on the trail, and gave me lots of ideas whilst walking through the woods such as, exploring the forest with your nose like a snake, how far can you jump, and what other colours can you find in the forest, James loved this! Well worth the £3 and the little bag was a handy size for James to carry round and collect twigs, leaves, pine cones, anything we could find for crafting later 🙂

Gisburn Forest is so beautiful and look at these huge Christmas trees, if only I could take one home, It felt like I was in Christmas tree heaven! 😉 As you can see the trail was really muddy so definitely recommend wellies or walking boots.

It took just over an hour to complete the whole trail with our very active 2 year old son. We didn’t rush we enjoyed taking pictures, showing James all the characters, and looking at all the animal hide outs, and completing the activity cards along the way. The trail is not pram or push chair friendly.

So to round up my 5 top tips are;

Tip 1,

Download the Gruffalo Spotter App before you set off. I can’t stress this enough as when you arrive at Gisburn Forest there is no service and to fully appreciate the trail at it’s best, it’s a must! Please don’t forget! as it brings all the characters to life which makes the experience feel that bit more special 🙂 You can take fab photo’s with all the characters on route, save them and print them off at a later date. Great keep sakes of your day. Remember not to delete the app before backing up the photos or you will lose them!

Tip 2,

Take your Wellies or walking shoes with a good grip on them. The Gruffalo trail is so muddy this time of year, as you can imagine! and although it’s great fun stomping in the mud it’s very slippery most of the way round. James and I both fell in the mud, so funny! but that brings me on to my next tip 😉

Tip 3,

Pack water and snacks as it took us just over an hour to get round. Plus a change of clothes, old carrier bags to put your wellies or walking boots in, an old towel to have a quick dry off and wipes, it’s a great trail but accidents do happen and it’s always better to be prepared I think! When you finish the trail there are toilets to get changed into.

Tip 4,

Have some change ready for the car park. The charge is £3 for the whole day which I think is great value to say the Gruffalo Trail is Free for all the family. All the proceeds go back to help the upkeep of the forest.

Tip 5

Buy your Gruffalo Activity Kit from the Gisburn Forest Hub café for just £3 which includes an evidence collection bag, 5 fact activity cards, stickers of the character’s, a special magnifying glass, ruler and pencil. Although James was a little young for some of the activities on cards, he loved trying them out.

If you like this and want to explore more beautiful days out in Lancashire have a nosey at our fab day out at Brockholes

Last bit of handy info is the Hub only accepts cash and there are no cash machines near by so make sure you take some cash, as they have a good selection of homemade hot/cold sandwiches and cakes, which are delicious! 😉 My only bug bear was that we didn’t see any public bins on the Trail so we had to wait until we arrived back at the hub to get rid of all our rubbish 🙁 apart from that It’s a great day out for all the family, and the Gruffalo Trail is open until the end of November. If you love forest’s and the Gruffalo as much as we do, find out here if there’s one near you. It’s definitely worth a visit! 🙂

Love

Mandy x

Pin For Later