🐛 The Very Hungry Caterpillar at Wakehurst - Kew Gardens
Having read @petface's post about The Hungry Caterpillar at Kew Gardens a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned it to the-mrs-gorilla as something which the-toddler-gorilla would love and that it's a shame that it's in Richmond.
Little did I know (but the-mrs-gorilla did) that an identical trail's at Wakehurst which is also run by Kew Gardens 🥳
So yesterday, we had a family outing...
The Journey
As usual, it wouldn't be one of my stories without writing about the journey to get there. Fortunately, Wakehurst is about an hour's drive from our house and the boys slept peacefully in the back of the car for most of it. Unfortunately, with 20 minutes to go, the-baby-gorilla woke up and started screaming. Which after a couple of minutes, woke the-toddler-gorilla up so he started screaming at the-baby-gorilla to shut up. Which made the-baby-gorilla scream even more. You already know the rest, it's a familiar story now. So the-mrs-gorilla and I laughed a little bit and then ignored them until they eventually shut up.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
If you didn't already know, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is real page turner, telling the story of a caterpillar that eats a little bit more each day until it feels sick (an apple on Monday, a couple of pears on Tuesday, a few plums on Wednesday, a handful of strawberries on Thursday, a bag of oranges on Friday and then stuffing its face on Saturday). It then eats a leaf and feels better. Then it makes itself a cocoon and transforms into a beautiful butterfly. I'm sure that you'll all agree, the plot is captivating.
Whilst on the surface, this is little more than an entertaining little story, I believe that there's an important message for its young audience...
If you eat a piece of chocolate cake, ice-cream cone, pickle, swiss cheese, salami, lollipop, cherry pie, sausage, cupcake and watermelon as your meal, then you're going to feel sick.
It's also been turned into a short, animated film and if you can spare just under 7 minutes, I have no doubt that this rank in your top 10 all time favourite short films...
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Trail
Whilst @petface was able to make the Trail sound interesting and educational, I'm going to simply share a little photo montage of Monday to Friday. Saturday wasn't as impressive - they just hung a few cardboard pictures on some trees and I don't think they even bothered with Sunday 🤷♂️
The trail's probably more enjoyable when your toddler doesn't start crawling on the floor, pretending to be a caterpillar (there's well over 100m between each little set of sculptures).
Wakehurst is a beautiful place which shouldn't come as a surprise as it's a combination of National Trust and Kew Gardens. We've visited it before but my memory's become so bad lately, that the only thing I could remember was where I'd parked.
Whilst we had a nice day out, the trail itself was a little disappointing and not really worthy of a visit in its own right. I'm definitely relieved that we didn't need to go to the effort of getting in and out of London with a baby and toddler!
All photographs are my own unless referenced
I just love how you guys go out often, I just hope the toddler likes it and keeps the baby too at peace.
Keep being a great dad and husband, you know, it's the little things that make the fondest memories.
And oh, those are some great scenery pictures.
Do you pay for visiting these places??
Nope, sleep time.. I'll be gone by the time the 7mins is done🤣🤣 jk.
Take care buddy...
It was a beautiful place but I didn't really take enough photos this time. It was all about the caterpillar trail so we didn't really make the most of anything else.
Wakehurst is run by the National Trust and we have a family annual membership. We don't use it as much as we should but we go enough to make it value for money 🙂
Oh great. That's great!
Happy Friday. 😱 I am really glad that a post of mine actually inspired a family outing! I think this is what blogging is all about. Well done to the-mrs-gorilla for finding an identical trail 👏 It seems that they had the sculptures too close to each other over there. Did they have sound installations on? The tree with the food on was my least favourite too. I like your signature getting there paragraph. We haven’t been to Wakehurst. Are the gardens worth it? Are there any glass houses for the more exotic plants?
I think the sculptures were quite well spaced but it must still be school holidays so there were more children than I would have liked 😆
I didn't notice any sound installations, just the sculptures and a few stands trying to sell you the "picnic trail" - which didn't include a picnic.
The gardens are nice but we didn't make the most of them this time. I think there's an indoor seed growing thing there too which are useful if you need the toilet (you don't water the plants yourself, there are toilets in the building).
I think it probably is your kind of place - it's worth a visit if you're a National Trust member.
You were fortunate to share and go out with the family, that's the best of all, the memories and the moments lived. Life is beautiful @the-gorilla, have a happy day.
Greetings from Venezuela
Gracias 👍
Steemit needs some good reviews here….
https://sourceforge.net/software/decentralized-social-media-networks/
Congratulations!
This post has been upvoted by steemcurator08.
Curation Team: IAT, "Lifestyle"
Curator: the-gorilla
A very hungry caterpillar transformed into a beautiful caterpillar. Poor caterpillar... It had to have a stomach upset in his search for food. A very interesting story with a beautiful ending. The kids will love this too.