Discovery Day at Trosley Country Park

My Mum, my sister and I went to Trosley Country Park a few days ago for the Discovery Day. It is part of a new programme of events by Old Chalk New Downs. It was a cold, wet day but it was still fun and loads of families turned up. It was our first visit to the park; it was a bit too cold and wet to look around much after the workshop but now that we know that it is an interesting place, we would like to go back there in the near future.

On the Discovery Day we first had a go at making dens. I got to work together with the other people to make a den of logs. It was cool and I found a stick that was too small to use for the den so one of the leaders showed me how to peel the bark off of it and I brought it home to finish making a staff. When we had finished the dens we put tarpaulins over them and the leaders threw water over them when we were in them. It was fun.

We walked around and were shown some of the fungi by the leaders. They were all different colours. I had never seen a real toadstool up close before and I didn’t know you could get so many different coloured mushrooms!

We sat down on some logs and some of the leaders made two campfires. They heated up some water to make If hot chocolate and everyone got to roast marshmallows on sticks. It was tricky to get them roasted just enough to make them tasty but not too much to fall off the stick. My first attempt came off the stick and landed in the fire!

After the marshmallows and hot chocolate, we did a bit of clay modelling. I made a clay pumpkin because it’s nearly Halloween. I had a little accident on the way home and dropped it, so at home I remodelled it into a Diya as we have been doing a mini project on Diwali and I thought that it would be fun to put a candle in it.

Altogether, the whole day was exciting and really good fun. I am glad that we went there and I can’t wait to go back to explore the rest of the park.

If you enjoyed Joshua’s story and you want to get outside and explore, check out our events page to find more exciting activities for all ages around the county.

If you’re a member of Kent Children’s University and you would like to earn learning credits by sharing your outdoor adventures, please submit your blog or vlog to explorekent@kent.gov.uk.