Zog is one of Julia Donaldson’s best creations… for anyone not familiar with the story, it really is a goody. Zog the slightly hapless dragon is at dragon school learning all the things that dragons need to know – like breathing out fire (not snow!), roaring and capturing princesses.
It’s great, and it’s currently all over the place – there was a brilliant adaptation of it on the BBC over Christmas (it’s still on the iPlayer) and now forests all over the UK have Zog Trails!
Our closest one is at Wendover Woods, over by Aylesbury and the Chilterns (about 45 minutes drive away). The woods are enormous – 800 acres – and absolutely stunning with some lovely views.
The Zog trail pack is £3 and well worth it. You buy it from Information and inside there’s a little activity book, a Zog mask, ‘golden star’ stickers and a red lens thing that you look through at various points on the trail.
The trail is six main points dotted along a long walk around Wendover Woods (it took us about an hour and half to do, but that was walking quite slowly and stopping for snacks).
At each point the kids are set a little nature challenge, loosely related to Zog (eg spot some animals that fly, collect leaves and blow them from your hand), and then you give them one of the golden star stickers.
The trail is sweet and it definitely motivated my son to walk around the woods, in particular the stickers… But some of the challenges were a bit over his head (he’s 3) and there was no big ‘wow that’s Zog’ moment (there’s a quite small cardboard cut out of him at the end).
Not meaning to sound critical as it’s a steal at £3 and a great way to make a walk round Wendover Woods more enjoyable for kids, but just mentioning as I’d hyped up we’re-going-to-see-Zog-at-the-woods to my son beforehand a bit too much for what there is.
They’re finishing off a brand new play trail at the moment though and the bits we saw of that were brilliant. When it’s warmer and the play trail is completed (soon – it was meant to be finished by end of last year), it would be great to spend the whole day at Wendover Woods and do the play trail and Zog trail with picnic.
Good to know…
For what’s on in Oxford for families over February half term, go here
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