Groombridge Palace Gardens and the Enchanted Forest , close to Tunbridge Wells in Kent, is a wonderful place to visit particularly with children who live through their imagination.
Although there is a café and shop within the grounds, the rest of the venue is completely outside, making the weather play a significant role in enjoying this particular outing. As the sky was grey and it looked like rain, we went prepared with jumpers, anoraks and boots to make sure that we achieved the best out of the day! There is plenty of parking within the grounds but because I have a son who is mad on trains, we decided to arrive in style by the Spa Valley Railway Line which runs periodically throughout the year. We set off from Tunbridge Wells West Station, stopped at High Rocks Station briefly and then carried onto Groombridge - the whole journey taking just over quarter of an hour.
After a quick stroll through the beautiful palace gardens, we decided it was time to experience the Enchanted Forest. Declining the opportunity to handle and stroke some guinea pigs and rabbits, we headed up the hill through the vineyard to tackle the Dark Walk Adventure Trail - a boardwalk with slides, rope ladders, tunnels and log walks. We tackled this once.....twice......three times until I insisted we moved on. Walking further up through the trees we came across the giant swings which were fantastic. These again kept us busy for the best part of an hour. As soon as we finished with one, we would walk on and discover another, and another and another. This was swinging at its best - the feeling was sensational.
Finally we came across the secret gardens, my favourite being the Mystic Pool area. It was delightfully eerie stepping along the pathways, imagining what strange creatures could be hiding behind the trees. Crossing the ponds by stepping stones was another great diversion along with feeding the carp - fish food could be bought by the waters edge. Along the boundary of the Forest was a canal which had a ferry boat carrying passengers to and from the Palace Gardens so no one had to retrace their steps at all. We had a wonderful day just managing to catch the train back to Tunbridge Wells. The only regret we had was we missed the Birds of Prey flying display but then we can always go back another day!
