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Family Day Out -The Butterfly Farm and Stratford-upon-Avon

Family Day Out -The Butterfly Farm and Stratford-upon-Avon

Today we visited the Butterfly Farm in the medieval market town of Stratford-upon-Avon. With over 800 years of history and home of the famous William Shakespeare, Stratford -upon- Avon is a beautiful town in the West Midlands with so much to see and do with little ones.

Visiting the Butterfly Farm

We do love our family time and today didn’t disappoint. We started off by heading to the Butterfly farm – I have been promising a visit for a while now. The Stratford-upon-Avon butterfly farm is the UK’s largest tropical butterfly paradise. The girls were so excited – butterflies and flower fairies are an ever present feature in our house just lately.

The Butterfly Farm is well signposted and we arrived at about 11.30am. The farm is easily accessible from the town centre and there is a good sized pay and display car park right next to the Butterfly Farm. We parked up the campervan and were then were able to walk to the entrance on foot with the double pushchair.

On arrival we paid our admission fee and headed straight to the flight area.  Off came our hats, coats and jumpers as the heat does hit you as you leave the outside area and enter the flight area. There are facilities for hanging coats and outdoor clothes in the entrance hall but we just used the double pushchair to store all of our outdoor clothes and jumpers.  The flight area is a wonderful exotic rainforest and home to around 250 species of butterflies. We purchased two butterfly checklists for £1 each, and armed with a pen and their butterfly checklists, the little ones wandered around mesmerised by the many butterflies and their wonderful shapes and colours -even babyS seemed taken by all the colours and butterflies fluttering by. There were wonderful staff on hand to ask any questions and to help the girl identify the butterflies. I did like the fact that you can take pushchairs into the butterfly area, and areas are easily accessible.

We continued on and entered the discovery zone, where there are hundreds of caterpillars on show with cocoons, giant silk moths and pupae hanging from the plants. The girls learned about the plants that they grow at the butterfly farm.  There are informative signs and posts all around which is great for little inquisitive minds. We were greeted by a member of staff handling a stick insect, in the handling area..the girls were not too sure about this but Mr S was fascinated by the large stick insect and even offered out his hand.

We then headed on to the mini beast metropolis, where there is the largest live insect display in the UK.  We observed hundreds of industrious ants carrying leaves along a raised ant rope measuring 15 metres in total.

Amazing Ant fact!

Did you know that ants are believed to make up half of all insects in some areas of the rainforest -and all the workers are female!? (that is a lot of hard working ladies!)

Mr S was quite fascinated by the giant African land snails, millipedes with over 200 legs, crabs, tiny poison arrow frogs and geckos, but I have to say the girls just wanted to return back to the flight area to find the waterfall, and hunt out the vibrantly coloured butterflies, continuing with their little butterfly checklists.

We stayed in the Butterfly farm for around two hours, and it was not too busy so we were able to get around easily with the pushchair and take our time reading the informative posters and signs.

We ended the tour in the gift shop which is filled with all things butterflies, bugs and flower fairies. The girls little smiles and ‘please daddy’ ended in a purchase or two to lighten the wallet.

Visitor information

During February the Butterfly Farm is open 10am-5pm but this changes throughtout the year.

2017 Admission prices;

Adults £7.25, Seniors and Students £6.75, Children 3-16 Years (under 3’s free) £6.25
Family (2 adults & 2 children) £22.50

Please check their website for more details.

Stratford-upon-Avon

In the afternoon the weather stayed fine, so we took a little stroll down by the riverside. The river is easily accessible from the Butterfly Farm and it is within walking distance.  The river seemed so peaceful and calm, and luckily it wasn’t too busy. Lil_E was a little enthusiastic about all the boats, running around… subsequently falling over in all her excitement. A slice of malteser cake in the nearby cafe made it all okay 🙂

We enjoyed a lovely day out visiting the Butterfly Farm. So much so that Lil_E asked to return the moment we got home.

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