Almond valley

Almond valley
Attraction (General)
in/near Livingston, Lanarkshire,
Scotland Central & Stirling

Recommendation added: 26/06/2007 19:11
By: jyb3 (YSUK rating +46)

jyb3 has been thanked 1 times for this contribution

"Well this lovely little place was recommended to me by a friend, so one day when the weather was nice we decided to take the kids out for the day. Almond valley is located in Livingston Lanarkshire. If you have small children then I highly recommend a visit to this place, when we went we were had a picnic beside a lovely pond while bucks walked around the grass no more than a foot from our table, after that we took a walk through water mill where you get to see how equipment has changed over the years, we then took a long walk around the nature trails along the river and waterfall. They have a wide selection of animals, cows sheep goats horses and lots more, at cretin times of the day you can see goats being milked in the barn, lambs being fed with baby bottles, this viewing is of course seasonal. If you wish you can take a ride on the narrow-gauge railway which runs the 500m from Livingston mill to the almonhaugh halt. The train runs Saturday and Sunday from Easter till September and daily during the school summer holidays, a return trip on the train costs only one pound per person. But if you would prefer you could go for a ride on the tractor-drawn trailer around the circuit of the lower paddocks and cost only 50 pence. You can go and take a look at a fossil digging site, then over to where the go carts are and have a race about the fields in the, if you want to take a break then why not do so at the play park or at the bouncy castle so that the kids can continue to run about while you relax. Also beside the parks is an old which is field with old farm equipment. When finished with the outside you can take a look at the indoor museum where there are plenty of activities for adults and children to take part in, and experiments for them to take part in like testing the speed and that air goes through oil depending on how it is mixed, you can try and separate oil and water. Or you can just take a look through old displays of shops, cinemas, houses and even down into old cold mines.
Also at almond valley they have a lovely little restaurant, a gift shop and public toilets. They have free parking as well and are open all year round; it is also a 4 star visitor attraction. Each week during the summer holidays they have new activates for children to take part it, form making sheep masks and being herded by sheep dogs, helping to create scarecrows to making musical instruments form old rubbish. You can also take part in old fashioned gala games and win medals for doing so. And if going at the right times you can become a detective and unravel clues, or you can see them launch water powered rockets. I for one will be taking my two children back during the summer holidays."