It isn’t often you choose a holiday as a marital experiment, but our Forest Holidays weekend away in Hampshire was just that. My husband feels about any landscape more rural than a golf course the way Woody Allen feels about California: he knows it exists but wonders why you’d want to go there. I, on the other hand, adore the spirit-restoring nature of nature. So when I learned about luxury cabins on Forestry Commission land – with ranger-led activities that our son and daughter (aged seven and just two) could join in with – I felt that, on paper at least, this holiday had been created with my family in mind.
It didn’t fail to deliver. While the nature-averse or exhausted can luxuriate in the eye-pleasing cabin’s comprehensive film, TV and internet package, others get to explore the forest. My son and I spent the Saturday night on a Night Vision Walk which, at this time of year, meant trekking along gloopy forest paths, strictly without torches, accompanied by the chilling sound that the wind reserves for its meetings with armies of very tall trees. There’s a no-torch rule because the aim of the walk is to spot forest wildlife through night vision lenses, and properly discover the landscape’s nocturnal goings on. This ranger-led walk is just one of the unusual ways young and older visitors get to interact with the beautiful woodland that is the star of any Forest Holidays break.
The idea of combining luxury cabins with the wisdom of rangers emerged decades ago when the Forestry Commission responded to demand for holiday accommodation in its prime locations. There are now cabins in seven forests across England, and two sites in Scotland. Ours, Blackwood in Hampshire, has 60 cabins sleeping between four and 10. You can see why some visitors might just want to stay put: besides the entertainment systems, there’s the option of in-cabin spa treatments, and most cabins have a private outdoor hot tub. The architecture is clever, showing off the forest through huge picture frame windows – so even while deep in conversation on the sofa on Saturday morning, we couldn’t miss the majesty of a huge buzzard landing feet away.
There is a great range of outdoor things to do but all are fairly low-key. One fellow guest commented on how much more relaxed it was than Center Parcs, where parents can feel compelled to pack everything in. Here one activity a day, or perhaps none at all, can be plenty – especially if your child, like mine, finds going out and getting muddy an excellent occupation; there was, of course, plenty of mud.
Some of the ranger-led activities worked well for younger children. Our two-year-old was happy to rummage around on the forest floor in a Young Explorers insect finding competition. She was even happier contributing to a woodland art activity, which saw kids aged from two to 12 (and adults) producing spectacular creations out of stones, leaves, fungus and more. Also popular was a competition held in an adjacent meadow to find “wiggly worms” – which were in fact bits of coloured wool.
In the Forest Survival workshop we learned how to build a shelter, forage for food and start a fire. The fire-starting was the ice-breaker in our group, with another family’s older children helping out the youngsters. Gail, our ranger for the weekend, was a true enthusiast. What she didn’t know about, say, bats or jelly fungus, probably isn’t worth knowing, and it was fantastic to have her knowledge instantly available.
There was plenty else to do: horse-riding, archery, fungi foraging. My son and I tried out geocaching for the first time and loved getting off the established tracks and trails. But we took it too far: emboldened by Gail’s night walk of the previous evening, we tried to finish it in the dark. Every owl in the forest seemed to be noisily pursuing us, which was amazing but only just this side of scary, and had to remedied with a long, relaxing soak in the hot tub.
This is a company that is brilliant at putting children and adults in touch with the forest, but doesn’t offer much else in the way of imaginative engagement. So under-sixes, no longer portable in slings or rucksacks are under-catered for. A storytelling element – such as a short Gruffalo trail or Bear Hunt – would go down a storm. Mike could do it in costume.
The forest is the focus of all operations. The friendly staff are not the customer-service-trained automatons you might find in a location that only exists to serve tourists. Arriving at 10pm with a sleeping toddler in the car we find that the booked cot hasn’t been set up and there are no instructions – and no phone or internet signal. That could have been a disaster but given the quality of everything else it is forgotten before too long. In fact, Mike, who expertly sets up our hired bikes the next day, sorts it out – and fixes a broken cabin lamp while he’s at it.
Everyone relaxed. The sofa stain of a previous occupant untouched by housekeeping would normally be a cardinal sin in my husband’s book. But on our last morning he sat back after breakfast and observed that – the sofa notwithstanding – it was hard to fault our break. From a man who finds mud stressful, this was praise indeed.
We’d also been well-fed thanks to the on-site Forest Retreat, which has a restaurant doing pizzas, curries and other crowd-pleasers, and a shop selling fresh food as well as quality ready-meals. There is also a grocery delivery service.
So, even in winter, I can see why adults might choose to come here. And children? We neither saw nor heard a single animal on our Night Vision Walk; the cycle trail was too muddy for a seven-year-old to manage; and we got ambushed by brambles during our after-dark geocaching. But when the ranger asked my son what his favourite thing was as we checked out, he listed all of these activities without pausing for breath. We will be back.
• The trip was provided by Forest Holidays, which has nine locations around the UK and cabins in three categories sleeping between two and 10 people. The cheapest, Copper Beach cabins, sleeping four in two bedrooms, cost from £375 for a three-night weekend
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