Things To Do In & Around Essex

Harlow Town Park

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Attraction | "An Amazing Area in Such a Concrete Takeover Town!"

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Harlow Town is somewhere that I have been residing for the past few years and I have never found myself truly exploring what is has to offer until recently. With funds short I am always looking for days out and things to do in my local area and Harlow Town Park is a great help towards days out that cost very little. The Town Park is 164 acres of greenery with scenic landscapes, river walks, fantastic views and it makes the ideal place for a visit any time of the year. In the Spring it is fantastic to watch all of the greenery coming back to life with the landscaped gardens beginning to fill once again with colourful flowers and the trees standing taller than ever and becoming many shades o...Read More

Harlow Town is somewhere that I have been residing for the past few years and I have never found myself truly exploring what is has to offer until recently. With funds short I am always looking for days out and things to do in my local area and Harlow Town Park is a great help towards days out that cost very little. The Town Park is 164 acres of greenery with scenic landscapes, river walks, fantastic views and it makes the ideal place for a visit any time of the year.

In the Spring it is fantastic to watch all of the greenery coming back to life with the landscaped gardens beginning to fill once again with colourful flowers and the trees standing taller than ever and becoming many shades of green again.

The Summer months are when the Town Park really comes in to it's own with the padding pool now filled, attendants at the ready, and children splashing around and enjoying themselves in the scarce Summer sun. There are also music events and activity days throughout the July-September period and these are advertised in the local paper and via posters in lots of the local shops.

Autumn is when, once again, the leaves begin to drop off the trees and this is probably my favourite time to visit the Town Park as it’s great to roll in to a huge pile of leaves or just stomp your feet around kicking leaves everywhere. Also, it’s not unusual to get some lasts bursts of sunny days and I like nothing more than to spend them wandering around here with a picnic or just taking my nieces & nephew to the adventure area. Also, let’s not forget about the huge firework display on November 5th (or around then!) which sees most of the town congregating for a night of fun and frolicking with a huge bonfire and a fantastic fireworks display being the nights main attractions.

Winter is a lonely time in the town park and apart from a few joggers and the occasional dog walker it’s relatively quiet. This makes it the perfect time for a walk in the rain, or snow if we have any, and it is ideal for just having some quiet time to reflect on your thoughts.

There is a huge adventure park with swings, slides, climbing frames, zip wires and many other items that children just adore and adults can even have a go on too! This is great fun and is free to visit all year round. There are some tablets providing and small shaded hill areas that are ideal for eating your lunch with the little ones while they burn off some of that energy they seem to have all year round!

Another fantastic area of the Town Park is Pets’ Corner where children can go along with their parents, guardians or relatives to meet the animals (free of charge) and possibly buy some food to give to them. There are quite a few animals here and it is great fun for all ages. It may be small but it’s perfectly formed and there is always staff around to answer any questions.

There is a lot to do in the Town Park and the sheer site of it means it’s very easy to find yourself wandering around for many hours but you are never far away from an exit on to a main road in order to find your way home again or even just back to the train station. I would definitely recommend a trip to the park if you are in the area as it’s free, there is a lot to do and with so much space you will never feel crowded! Read Less

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on July 29, 2009

Harlow Town Park
First Avenue/Mandela Avenue
Harlow, United Kingdom
+44 1279 446655

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Aqua Splash

Best Of IgoUgo

Attraction | "I Certainly Made an Aquasplash!"

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I live in Essex and at times I can get bored of visiting the same places so I recently started trying to look for new places to explore and this is how I found Aquasplash. It takes around 45 minutes to reach from Harlow, Essex and this is just 37 miles door to door so it is not too far to travel. It was fairly easy to locate as I just used a route planner before hand.Upon arriving the first thing that I noticed was that there did not seem to be a massive amount of parking for a Leisure ‘Complex, however, there were lots of free spaces everywhere and it was fairly busy inside so perhaps there were just lots more spaces than I initially realised. There was an ample amount of disabled bays an...Read More

Member Rating 4 out of 5 on October 24, 2009

Aqua Splash
Jarmans Park
Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom
+44 845 8725799

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Paradise Wildlife Park

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Attraction | "A Wild Life For All In This Park"

Rawrr! Photo - Paradise Wildlife Park, Broxbourne, England

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When speaking to my sister recently about something to do in the local area she recommend the Paradise Wildlife Park to me. While I have been there before I haven’t been in a good couple of years and so before I knew it we were on the train to Broxbourne station. Upon arrival I asked at the ticket office and they called Paradise Wildlife Park who arranged a free pick up for us from the station. We were picked up in a minibus by a very friendly member of staff who did lots of different jobs at the park and both on the journey there and the return to the station in the evening I noticed that the staff members seemed very happy in their work and very keen to know what your opinions of the par...Read More

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on June 12, 2010

Paradise Wildlife Park
White Stubbs Lane
Broxbourne, Hertfordshire EN10 7QA
+44 1992 470490

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Colchester Zoo

Best Of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Just what will you see at Colchester Zoo?"

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We like to go out at least once a month and one of the places we visited recently was Colchester Zoo. It's about a 45 minute drive from where we live and it's relatively easy to find until you get to the actual stress with the zoo on and then it's very easy to drive past it without realising as we learnt after driving up and down several times!The zoo is open every single day of the year (Except Christmas Day) from 09:30am and we arrived not long after this. The opening times vary throughout the year and on our visit they were closing at 5pm but in peak season they are open until 530pm with the grounds closing 1 hour later. For opening times and other information you can visit http://www.c...Read More

We like to go out at least once a month and one of the places we visited recently was Colchester Zoo. It's about a 45 minute drive from where we live and it's relatively easy to find until you get to the actual stress with the zoo on and then it's very easy to drive past it without realising as we learnt after driving up and down several times!

The zoo is open every single day of the year (Except Christmas Day) from 09:30am and we arrived not long after this. The opening times vary throughout the year and on our visit they were closing at 5pm but in peak season they are open until 530pm with the grounds closing 1 hour later. For opening times and other information you can visit http://www.colchester-zoo.co.uk/ .

Prices range from £15.99 - £17.99 for adults, £9.99 - £10.99 for children and £12.99 - £14.50 for senior citizens. To check what price would be relevant on any date just go to http://www.colchester-zoo.co.uk/index.cfm?fa=content.list&page=201&section=7 .

Once we found the zoo it was easy to park as there was ample amounts of space and while we did not visit on a particularly busy day we were able to find a space right by the entrance to the park. There were disabled spaces available but obviously we didn't qualify for one of these so we didn't park in one. It took just a few minutes to enter the park, pay, get our guide books and begin exploring. The entrance to the park is also the way you end up exiting so it's simple to get back to your car. Also, right by the entrance/exit there are two different gift shops. One is selling your standard gift shop fayre (cuddly toys, magnets, pencils etc) and one is selling more luxurious carved animals and other expensive gifts/souvenirs.

There is a whole array of animals to see, as you'd expect, including primates, sealions, penguins, reptiles, big cats, birds, dogs etc. There are lots of different animals, tens and tens of them, to see and, for the most part, I think we saw almost every single animal that was on offer in the zoo except one or two that were elusive and hid away from our cameras. If you want to see a full list of animals in the zoo you can visit http://www.colchester-zoo.com/pdf/Welcome%20Guide%20Colchester%20Zoo%20April%202011.pdf .

Overall I must say that we had an absolutely fantastic day. The layout of the zoo is fantastic with lots of signs everywhere directing you to your nearest food area, toilet or the next set of exhibits. If you are on one side of the zoo and want to work your way towards a certain exhibit it's quite easy to follow the signs and make your way over to the other side of the zoo. All the paths entwine with one another so you don't have to go miles out of your way just to get to an exhibit. The animals are well set out so that every way you walk you will see some animals along the way and there are enough to keep you occupied for the whole day.

The animal enclosures seems to be kept clean and tidy and it was fairly common to see staff around the site busy working at feeding the animals and cleaning out their enclosures. Also, there are lots of times during the day that you can meet the keepers, they will talk to you about the animals or even let you ask them some questions or get up close and personal with the animals depending on what time you stop by and what's going on that day. While we didn't actively go to many of these talks, except a one on meerkats, we were lucky enough to walk past the penguin enclosure when they were having a feed and it wasn't one of the tours. The keeper called over to us, directed us round a corner and we were able to stand right next to the penguins as they ate their 3 kilos of fish! It was fantastic as we got some wonderful photographs and got to watch them eating for about 10 minutes while she talked to us a little about the penguins.

Overall we had a fantastic day at the zoo, we stayed there for the whole day from about 10am to about 430pm and we had some food while we were there. We ate in the chicken place and we had some food which wasn't too bad, a little like a cheaper version of KFC. We also stopped several times to use the toilets and they were clean, fresh and in good working order. There was several areas to buy food and drink on the way round and we weren't left feeling thirsty without a place to go or in need of the toilet without one near by. The gift shops gave us about twenty minutes entertainment as there was just so much choice, the more expensive of the two shops was definitely our favourite with jewellry, ornaments and candles on offer, just what girls like really!

If you are looking for a fun day out then why not give Colchester Zoo a go? We had a fantastic day and for about £16 it was a reasonably priced day out working out at about £2.50 per hour for all the entertainment we had. There is plenty to do and see and it will easily keep you occupied for a whole day. Read Less

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on May 10, 2011

Colchester Zoo
Maldon Road
Stanway, Colchester, Essex CO3 0SL
01206 331292

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Go Bananas Play Company

Best Of IgoUgo

Attraction | "Will you go bananas?"

Quote:

As I'm an auntie of eight gorgeous nieces and nephews it's fair to say that I've done my fair share of childhood related things, and someone elses share! One of the places that I've recently visited is 'Go Bananas' in Colchester, Essex. The opening times are 9.30am to 6.30pm Monday-Saturday and 10.00am to 6.30pm on Sundays. They are also open 10.00am to 4.00pm on Bank Holidays and are open every day of the year except Christmas Day, Boxing Day & New Years Day. This is quite a fantastic variety of opening times as it means regardless of the day of the week you can have a nice lunch somewhere and then take your little ones along to Go Bananas for a fun afternoon out. The pric...Read More

As I'm an auntie of eight gorgeous nieces and nephews it's fair to say that I've done my fair share of childhood related things, and someone elses share! One of the places that I've recently visited is 'Go Bananas' in Colchester, Essex.

The opening times are 9.30am to 6.30pm Monday-Saturday and 10.00am to 6.30pm on Sundays. They are also open 10.00am to 4.00pm on Bank Holidays and are open every day of the year except Christmas Day, Boxing Day & New Years Day. This is quite a fantastic variety of opening times as it means regardless of the day of the week you can have a nice lunch somewhere and then take your little ones along to Go Bananas for a fun afternoon out.

The prices are as follows:

FREE for adults and newborn to 6months
£1.20 - crawlers
£4.20 - walking to 4 years old
£5.00 - 5 to 12 years (max height 5ft)

(Copied from http://www.go-bananas.co.uk/about_timespricing.html)

As I was visiting the play area with three of my nieces and my sister it cost us just £10.00 for the four of us to enter as my youngest niece was just around the six month mark at the time and was very reasonable with two hours play being allowed from the time of your admittance. I felt that this was a reasonable amount of time as it was plenty of time for my nieces to explore the play centre, for us to have a chat and a little play too and not get too bored waiting for the children to finish playing.

The play centre is very easy to find as you just need to follow signs for it from the rail station and it's just a few minutes in the car and probably not much longer on foot. There is ample on site parking and we had no trouble finding a parking space.

The toilet facilities on site are very child friendly and they have a baby changing area also which was useful for my youngest niece to be changed in. It was clean, tidy and hygienic (at least it appeared to be) and there was ample space to comfortably change my niece without worrying about her rolling off anything or hurting herself. I was pleased with the facilities, as was my sister.

The play area itself is absolutely fantastic with all it's bright colours and entertaining areas for the children to check out. It's a large area with slides, cargo nets, ball pools, and there is even a rock wall for the older children to climb. There is a ton of stuff to do here and two hours is probably just about enough time for children to enjoy everything that's here. Also, I must admit I did have a little play in the centre myself with my eldest nieces and the staff had no problem with this at all. It was great fun to be able to go down slides and just generally muck around and I got some fantastic photographs of my nieces that I will treasure forever. There was a lovely little soft play area for the little children and although my youngest niece was very small at the time I was able to sit her in a little bubble car and prop her up and just generally have a little play with her which prompted some of her first ever proper girlie giggles which was just fantastic for me to be involved in.

Overall I'd rate this an excellent day out, obviously depending on the size of your little one it depends how cheap it is, however, even if it's £5 each it's still fantastic. The staff are very friendly and they don't mind you mucking in and having fun with your little ones. It was fantastic for me to see my nieces enjoying themselves so much and my middle niece was so tired that she actually fell asleep in the car on the way home. The play centre was fairly busy when we attended but it didn't detract from the amount of fun that my nieces were able to have. I really enjoyed our day out and I'm sure we will return there again in the near future, particularly as they keep asking about it! Read Less

Member Rating 5 out of 5 on May 10, 2011

Go Bananas Play Company
9-10 Mason Road, Cowdray Centre, Cowdray Avenue
Colchester, England
01206 761762

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