REVIEW: BEWILDERWOOD, NORFOLK
Boats, Boggles, Treetop Houses, Slippery Slopes & Crocklebogs in a Magical Forest Adventure
Author Tom Blofeld has created the ultimate, immersive storytelling with BeWILDerwood, an award-winning forest adventure brimming with Crocklebogs, Twiggles, Boggles, magical boat rides, treehouses, wobbly wires and slippery slopes.
We head to the Norfolk attraction, which encourages families to leap into nature, with a different woodland adventure around every corner.
There are wonky treehouses, mazes, a woodland theatre, den building, arts and crafts and face-painting, and our children delight in the creatures we meet along the way, from Snazzlefang the BeWILDerbat to The Thornyclod Spider.
The magical tone is set on arrival, as we walk the winding "Treacherous Trail" past wonderfully detailed Twiggle and Boggle houses in the trees and marsh, with oversized books giving tasters of the BeWILDerwood story we’ve entered.
We arrive at a waterside platform, where our tour guide beckons us onto a pleasingly cartoonish, pink and purple BeWILDerboat, for a boat tour past the Boggle village to the Scaaaaary Lake, where we learn about Swampy the Marsh Boggle and meet Mildred the Crocklebog.
A series of Wonderland-esque signs point in various directions, heralding the beginning of our forest adventure. We let our increasingly excited children take the lead, breathlessly following them around this sprawling forest, brimming with otherworldy wooden treehouses, mazes and pixie huts.
The attention to detail is gorgeous and incredibly thoughtful - there’s a Nursing Nook hut, with wooden rocking chairs and changing tables. They ensure families with mixed age children are kept happy, by putting smaller and medium length zipwires for younger kids beside the bigger ones for older children.
Separate walkways are placed beside tiny, child-sized parts in the warren of treetop worlds, to encourage adults to comfortably clamber around with kids. And they insist everybody wears a provided foot sack when taking on the slides, to protect skin - some are very steep - and save slides (and trousers) from muddy feet.
There are no noisy rides and no technology - everything is in keeping with its natural surroundings and all activities are included in the ticket price. The only thing you have to pay for is the food, and the Munch huts are thoughtfully placed at both ends of the forest, so the climbing and leaping sprogs are crucially, never far from a snack. Visitors are also welcome to bring picnics.
Our children make a beeline for the arts and crafts Big Hat - a giant tarpaulin wizard hat, glowing with festoon lights and filled with colourful crafting goodies, where our children make colourful "Parasquawk" birds.
Another highlight is the brilliantly inventive Storytelling Stage, where the children delight in seeing BeWILDerwood stories brought to life, with puppets, clever props, music and lots of screeching audience interaction - performances of different stories run throughout the day, and our kids could have happily watched them all.
But the biggest triumphs of this destination, are the woodland adventure worlds.
The three Slippery Slopes are a huge hit with our six-year old, who was far braver than I, whizzing down the three slides, which range in height and steepness and all sliders must be at least 92cm tall.
There are long, wobbly wooden bridges between treehouses with deliberately “broken” (transparent) slats; a warren of colourful Boggle or Twiggle village treehouses to explore; an insane Muddled Maze, and brilliantly inventive Tricky Tunnels; a whimsical assault course, with wobbly boards, tunnels, chimneys and rope walls.
And the literal pinnacle of the experience for our six and three-year-old is the Sky Maze. They leap around it to solve a riddle by finding letters on colourful Parasquawk eggs, hidden around the never-ending treetop maze, to win special badges.
At the top, we are rewarded with fabulous views across the enchanted woods and the families building Boggle dens beneath us.