The Jarvii The Gruffalo is a very famous English series of children’s book, which my kids enjoy reading. Apparently the author, Julia Donaldson, has cornered the children’s book market, with the Gruffalo being the most popular series. And due to the popularity, there are a few Gruffalo trails dotted around England for families to do their country walks (which is a very English thing to do).
The Gruffalo trail we decided to do was at Thorndon Country Park, which is outside of greater London (my in-laws live in Essex). When you drive, you enter Thorndon North and park at the first parking lot (car park). That’s the closest to the Countryside Centre, where you can get a special Gruffalo map for your walk. If that parking lot is full, there’s an overflow lot further down and a trail to get to the Countryside Centre. Go inside the Countryside Centre to grab your map, but beware they sell A LOT of Grufflo stuff in case you have children who always want to buy toys.
The trail is a fairly easy, short, flat trail for a walk. The website says it’s a 45 minute walk, but I thought it was a lot shorter than that. We did take our stroller with us (mostly because my 3, almost 4 year old is a lazy walker). My daughter had no interest in being worn, but I brought it just in case she was feeling tired and the stroller was occupied. Because England didn’t have any rain in days, the ground was very dry and we got away with wearing our regular tennis shoes. But the park recommends wearing wellies (a very English thing to do on country walks).
The Gruffalo trail is really a large circle around the Countryside Centre. We had our son use the map to guide us to the different characters that are in the book series. The characters themselves were sometimes a bit hard to find for the adults, which made it interesting for my son. But he would get so excited when he did discover the characters before us.
The end of the trail leads you back to the Countryside Centre where you can have a little picnic lunch as there were several picnic tables around. There’s not much else around the park, other than a proper country walk (be weary as there are trails used by horses). I think the Countryside Centre has a cafe, but it was under renovation and closed when we visited. So we decided to have lunch elsewhere.
Overall it was a very cute walk, especially if you have children who are really into the Gruffalo. The trail is perfect for little children who aren’t able to do very long walks. If you are looking for something more strenuous, this is probably not the right walk for you. My daughter was indifferent to it, but my son loved it!
