The girls have been asking to ride their bikes for a while but it’s not as easy here as it was when we lived in the UK. We used to be able to pop on our bikes and ride on the pavement from our house down to the local parade of shops. However, the girls and their stabilisers are not quite ready for the extremely narrow lanes where we live, so we’ve had to look for good bike riding places. This afternoon we packed the bikes in the boot and headed to Saumarez Park, our favourite for combining bikes, feeding ducks and lots of playing.
Saumarez Park is the largest public park in Guernsey. It’s such a lovely place to visit thanks to the large expanses of grass, duck pond with Japanese style pavilion, recently renovated children’s playground, café and The National Trust of Guernsey’s Folk and Costume Museum (which we are yet to look round).
My least favourite part of visiting Saumarez Park is the parking. There are 2 on-site parking areas, one next to the playground (Route de Saumarez) and the other round the back nearer to the pond (Saumarez Lane). The playground car park is very small and gets full early so we headed to the parking on Saumarez Lane however, that was full too, so we were directed to park in Home Farm Field which is opposite. It’s a short walk out of the field, across the tiny lane and into the car park so not a problem and it prevented us from getting stuck in a queue of traffic waiting for someone to leave a space in the car park.
The beauty of Saumarez Park for kids with bikes/scooters is the tarmacked path which goes all round the edge of the park. We always turn left out of the car park (heading away from the playground and café) which takes you to the duck pond and the pavilion.
The girls love dumping their bikes and running onto the pavilion to feed the ducks. No matter how much food they have had they always seem very hungry ducks! The girls loved seeing large carp coming up to the surface to take the seeds too.
The girls always save some duck food to feed the ducks from the edge of the pond (a little further round on the path) where you can get closer to the ducks. Lottie is always determined to get a duck to feed from her hand, much to my pleading for her not to do it!
We then follow the path a little further to the girls’ favourite tree. The branches are really low and easy to climb, they would literally spend as long as we would let them playing on it. I just wish there was a bench near it for me!
After a quick climb of the sideways tree we headed to the playground. There are lots of bike racks next to the park so no worries leaving the bikes whilst the kids play. This is by far our favourite playground on the island, it has so much to do for children of all ages. The centre piece is a large pirate ship with a tall climbing section joining the two ends of the ship. Aside from this there is a whole host of things to play on from swings, slides, zip wire, swinging ropes to a lighthouse. The girls are never ready to leave and would happily stay here for hours but dinner was calling so we got the bikes and rode/ walked back to the car.
We didn’t head to the café this time but there is a relatively large cafe on site which serves breakfast and lunch. It’s quite an eclectic place with flags from around the world and kids teddies hanging from the ceiling in the children’s end. My girls like the blackboard room (as it sounds, a room where the walls are painted with blackboard paint and the kids are free to draw on it) and the fact there is a TV in there which is often playing a kids program.
All in all we had a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing few hours at Saumarez Park (aside from the stabiliser removal!) and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a place to take their kids to play/ walk/ bike/ climb.
