Mabie Farm Park

On the final day of our weekend in Southerness (we stayed at Parkdean Holiday Village), we decided to head to Mabie Farm Park. Mabie farm park is in the Dumfries and Galloway countryside and is in a beautiful setting. It is about 15 minutes drive from Southerness and I cannot recommend it enough for a day out if you have children regardless of their age. My little boy is 2 years old and loves animals and we even have an annual pass for Blackpool Zoo.

Mabie farm is owned and operated by Julia and Allan Shuttleworth and have made it a very enjoyable, fun day out. It costs £6.50 for adults and £6.00 for children admission. You can also buy bags of food at 50 pence and you are asked four legs or two?. This is because they sell food for the goats and pigs and also the ducks and chicks.
The park is open daily from 10am until 5pm from April until 30 October. There is plenty of parking available.

The day that we went to the farm was beautiful weather and there was even talk on the radio, that it was the hottest day so far. There are activities for all weather conditions. The animals that you can see are goats. pigs, lambs, buffalo, cows, Shetland ponies and many more. There are also birds such as peacocks, quail, hens, guinea fowl and ducks plus many more. There are also donkeys available and donkey rides for the children (they are provided with riding hats.)

The outdoor facilities consist of four lane astroslide, bouncy castles (to suit different ages), a huge jumping pillow (that I really wanted to play on but not really appropriate), 2 AstroTurf grass slides for grass sledging, quad bikes for the older children and a huge area for running around or just playing. There is also a small express that runs around the farm, a boating pond and pedal go karts for children 4 plus. My little boy's favourite was the children's wooden houses which is situated near to trampolines, there are either 3 or 4 plus a plastic one and he loved playing in them.

Should the weather be a bit rubbish, then there is still plenty of indoor activities going on.  There is a straw barn with rope swings and bales of hay to play with, an indoor climbing wall, keep fit area for toddlers and ride on tractors. There is of course the indoor barns with the goats, pigs etc as well.

In the afternoons, there is an opportunity to handle some of the smaller residents such as guinea pigs, mice and rabbits. There are picnic areas scattered around the farm and you are permitted to bring your own food and have picnic, there is just a sign at the cafe asking that it is just used for people buying food, which is fair enough. You are also permitted to bring your portable barbeque's and there is an area set aside for this.

I was quite surprised at how reasonable the food was in the cafe/tea room, as usually when you go to tourist attractions and there is nowhere else close by to buy food, you get ripped off.  They sell hot and cold food, snacks, crisps and sweets and there is also an ice cream counter selling the local 'cream of Galloway' ice cream.

I forgot to mention above that some of the rides such as Donkey rides, quad bikes, paddle boat and the choo choo express, there is an additional charge for but everything else is included in your admission.  On the way out (and on the way in) you go via the shop.  The shop sells toys, wellies and raincoats as well as home made items such as jams, cakes (inc coffee cake which was yummy) and other home made items.

We found Mabie Farm quite by accident while looking for something outside of Parkdean to do in our weekend. I don't think we have anything like this anywhere near where I live, which is such a shame as it was a great day out. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend the whole day as we had to travel home, but we had a good few  hours or so which went to quickly and our little boy didn't want to go.

 If you are staying in the Dumfries/Galloway area or at Southerness, then I recommend a day here especially of you get good weather as it does make a difference. But whatever you decide to do, enjoy your visit. 

Southerness July 2011

 We booked our Parkdean Weekend break via the Sun Newspaper £9.50 holidays ages ago.   We have never booked one before so was a little dubious. Of course it isn't £9.50 as you have all the extras like under occupancy supplement if there aren't 4 of you, bedding, summer supplements (if required) and entertainment passes (at most parks), but it was still good value for money. We had put 4 choices down and was booked into Parkdean at Southerness which is on the Solway Coast near Dumfries. 







  It is a beautiful area and took about 2 and half hours from Blackpool to get there. We checked in very quickly and our caravan was near to all the amenities (which we were surprised at - we thought we would be furthest away). The caravan was a 2 bedroom static and spotlessly clean. The bedding was on the table for us to make up, but there was plenty of room in the living and kitchen area. The bedrooms and bathroom were tiny, but this is to be expected.

Parkdean is only small on a scale with Butlins had has everything that you need for a break away. The entertainment crew are called 'Troupers' and the children's entertainment are defined by ages.  Tot Stars are under 4's, Starlanders are under10's and Freestyle is 10 and over but not quite adults. There is a full entertainment programme everyday from 10am where there is an hour of different activities for different age groups. Lizzie the Lizard and Sid the seagull are the mascots who entertain the children. My little boy was terrified just as he was at Butlins last year when he met a 6 foot Bob the Builder.

 

Doors to the show bar open at 6.30pm in the evening and until 8.30pm it is mainly family entertainment with silly games, shows and a disco. At 8.30pm there is bingo then cabaret and then a disco. This does vary depending on what day of the week it is. We were there Friday to Monday and dropped very lucky with the weather as it was scorching hot. There is a water splash (Flume Lagoon) which I believe only opened this year which has children's pools, flumes and is great. The thing that impressed me about it is the way it is run. When you go into the pool, you are given a coloured band, so you only get a limited swimming time (not sure what it is, around 2 hours I think). After the period of time, the lifeguard calls your coloured band and you get out. But this means that the pool is never crowded and there are never huge queues for the slides, also something which is worth a mention is that they have proper hairdryers in the changing rooms. (not the rubbish air blowers that are in most public swimming pools).

There are a couple of outdoor play areas and an indoor play area for the kids to enjoy. All the entertainment and swimming pool is in the Venue which also has amusements, Costa Coffee, The Show bar, Takeaway and a bar which has a full food menu offering food all day from 10am including The Highland Breakfast (the food is reasonably priced considering you are in a Holiday Park). There is also a Launderette on the site and an over priced Costcutter shop which sells everything you could possible need for your break.

Parkdean is on the Solway Coast Road so you have the beach on your doorstep and there is a signposted footpath to the beach from the park. There is also a Southerness nature trail guide and you can ask reception for the nature trail quiz and I believe if you complete it then you receive a certificate. One thing worth mentioning is cash machines, there is one on site but there is a charge of £1.60 to use it so I wouldn't recommend this. Parkdean has a customer service level which they want to be excellent so all the staff wear a little badge which is a pair of feet meaning (we walk in your shoes).

The customer service is excellent and when you eat in the bar, the staff come over and make sure everything is OK and ask you to fill out a survey at the end.  But even in the pool area, entertainment and reception the staff were all friendly and helpful.

 We did only have 3 nights at Parkdean from Friday to Monday and I think we had the best weather of the year so far as it was scorching hot. On the Saturday morning, we took our little man to Tot Stars - Tot Crafts and he made finger monsters and loved it.






This finished at 11am, then we took him to the beach to tire him out some more and he collected shells in his bucket. Then in the afternoon, we went swimming just to finish him off. In the evening, we went to the show bar from 6.30pm until 8.30pm when bingo starts. We decided to go back to our caravan and have a barbeque as it was still really warm, (We brought disposable ones with us).

On the Sunday at 10am it was Tot Stars - Music Tots where they got to try and play with different musical instruments and he loved this.  Later on we drove to Dumfries which is about 15 miles away and took about 20 minutes or so. There were quite a few free car parks which we were amazed at as they don't exist in Blackpool. Dumfries is lovely and we had a walk around the town centre and shops and then took a walk down to the river.








In the evening, we headed to the show bar for the mini disco until bingo started at 8.30 then took our little man back to the caravan and put him to bed and watched television. (I really didn't mind missing out on the bingo!). Checkout is at 10am and the beds have to be stripped ready for the cleaners to go in. On the Monday of our departure, we took a drive to Dalbeattie which took about 20 minutes and is a very small town compared to Dumfries, but has a few shops and the people were very friendly. I bought my square sausage and Haggis to take back south with me from the butchers.

We spent most of the day at Mabie farm Park which I am going to blog separately as it was a great day and there is so much to do and I would definitely recommend it. It is only about 10 minutes from Southerness and has things for every age group to do from feeding the animals to riding Quad bikes. Not far from Southerness in the opposite direction to Dumfries is a small village called Sandyhills which has a beautiful sandy beach and I would recommend this if you are stuck for something to do.  If I had more time, I would like to drive the scenic road to Gretna Green as it is supposed to be beautiful.  There is also the Gretna Green outlet village which has outlet stores including M & S, Ralph Lauren, Rockport and many others.  I would recommend this area and Parkdean at Southerness is great for families and will be going back soon.