We live not far from a house with something special in its front garden. I mean when I say special. This garden has an array of literally massive animal statues just chilling in the front garden. Having small kids, it’s been really convenient to have it so close. It’s just a place that you might nip over to when you want to go for a light local walk and kill a little bit of time.
They’ve got giant giraffes, which always grabs the attention of passers-by. They’ve got chimpanzees. Zebras can be found there. I’m sure there’s a massive tortoise. There’s also a donkey, gorilla, sheep, cows and plenty more. I’m understating how good it is, but just know a 3-year-old would be buzzing if they stumbled upon it. It’s all behind a gate, but people are free to come and view it at the end of the owners’ driveway.
A few months ago, all they just disappeared. We didn’t know what happened. We didn’t know if the people that lived there sold the property or what, but it was all gone.
We recently found out about the Totally Roarsome attraction over at Rufford Abbey. The parent of a child Cameo goes to preschool with suggested we go, so off we did. We went to explore a place filled with creations just like this – but featuring dinosaurs that the kids could touch, run away from and roar at.
In the lead up to the day, we hyped It up massively. We told them the premise and they were very excited by the plans we had for them. I honestly couldn’t tell you whether I think that Cameo believes dinosaurs actually existed, but he went and spoiled the fun almost immediately by revealing that the very first one we saw wasn’t real – taking the edge off for our new 3-year-old.
As we made our way through this wooden path, we encountered all kinds of fierce beasts from prehistoric times. Most of them tower over you as you walk along. Each gives a short description to give you some context and, at least, a name, so you know what you’re looking at.
Once the dinosaur bit was complete, we soon discovered that there was more to the attraction than we anticipated. First there were some farm animals. We were then soon greeted by the skeleton of a pirate, we met an astronaut and some aliens, there was a superhero section (complete with Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk and others) before we found ourselves surrounded by animals.
Those animals from down the road!
The very same animals that we went to visit and had suddenly disappeared were all at this attraction at Rufford Abbey. There’s a lion, a massive frog, a panda and so much more for the kids to get up close to and enjoy. It was our destiny that we would come here and discover them. The boys finally got to see these figures being displayed in the right context so they could enjoy them properly (rather than behind a gate).
Once the animals do return home, the boys are bound to have an even closer connection to them.
Totally Roarsome can be found in a number of locations around England. The one closest to us is in Ollerton. Find all the details here.
