Farmer Copley’s
Pontefract
Reviewed by Pamela Wright
We went to Farmer Copley’s today with our 5 children, we got there at 10am but the park didn’t open until 10:30am so we went to look at the chickens/donkeys and goats until it opened.
At 10:30am we got our wristbands and the children raced straight to the huge inflatable slide and jumping pillow. You had to be 3 or over to go on the slide so our eldest three aged nearly 8, 6 & nearly 4 went on that – it is really steep and their faces were a picture the first time they came flying down it but after the initial slide they couldn’t get back onto it quick enough – we had to drag them off it after about 15/20 minutes. Our twins were too young for the slide and started to cry when we told them but as soon as they got on the Jumping Pillow it was so much fun the tears soon vanished. I initially stood back and watched them bouncing about but after a while it looked like too much fun so I joined in with them – it was fab and I was laughing and bouncing all over like a little kid.
We all had a go at climbing up the bale mountain and the tyre mountain, I raced against my eldest two in the Tag Spookley Game – but they both beat my time, I’m sure they did some cheating though! (That’s my excuse anyway and I’m sticking to it).
After lunch we went into the smallest of the 2 maze’s, there are 5 stations to find in the maze and each has a different colour finger paint, you paint 1 finger on your right hand at each station and when you have painted all 5 you come out and match your hand to 1 of the 100 combinations, each has its own dare/task – mine was to cry like a baby and my eldest daughters was “do a silly walk”
After the small maze we thought we’d have a go at the big maze – you get a worksheet and a crayon and have to find 18 stations in the maze – the guidelines say it will take roughly 60 to 120 minutes, my husband picked out the 25ft slide from the main park as his “centre point” to keep his bearings but after we had been in the maze a while he looked up and all he could see was cornfields and no sign of the slide. We had loads of fun trying to guess where we were in the maze and found ourselves getting excited about finding new stations only to realise we had already been to them and had just gone back on ourselves. I lost track of the amount of times we ended up near the main bridge or back at a station we had already been to which the children found hilarious (I obviously told them to blame their dad). We even went up to the map on the bridge and tried to remember left/right etc… to find the stations that way but we still failed.
Unfortunately we ended up having to leave around 3pm as the youngest 3 were totally shattered, we looked at the time and realised we had been in the maze for just over 90 minutes (I felt like we had only been in there about ½ an hour), we checked our sheet and realised we had only found an embarrassing 5 out of the 18 stations (oops)….
The wristbands we had were for the access all areas all day for £5.99 for adults and £6.99 for children (under 3’s free) this has unlimited entry to everything in the park. It’s quite a good price for smaller families but I think it would be more appealing for larger families if they offered a family ticket. There is a season pass for 4 people for £49.99 that allows you to go as many times as you like.
I will definitely go back in the future but I think I will either wait until the youngest 3 are a little bit older or leave them at their grandparents and just take the eldest 2 so we can let my competitive side out and try to find all 18 stations.
The only downside today was that when you enter the Big Maze you’re meant get a work sheet, a crayon and watch a video to show you how to use the maze/stations etc…and how to get help from a “corn ranger” if you need it, but when we went into the maze there were no Corn Rangers around, the video wasn’t playing either so we just picked up a worksheet & crayon and set off.
Rating: 4/5
For more information visit www.farmercopleys.co.uk
