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Rare Breeds Garden Café
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Kingswear footpath
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Buckfastleight Railway
Family Favourites - May 2014
Everyone in my family loves railway stations. It might sound odd but we often go to the station and don’t travel on the train!
Buckfastleigh is our favourite… Obviously the first thing you need to do is check the timetable of when the trains are coming in and out of the station and stand on the platform or bridge and wave at the trains as they come in. My kids absolutely love doing this. At Buckfastleigh on the platform edge there is a small museum where you can go and have a look at the railway bits and bobs, do some colouring in and look at the pictures from years gone by. Even better than this though, is the café across the car park, where there are toy trains to play with and a model railway line, with a train trundling round all the time. The reason we first went to Buckfastleigh Station was because a neighbour with small children said to me, “They do the best chicken nuggets in the world in the café there,” and that was enough to entice us to go! It really is a lovely place to visit.
If you are a doggy and child family, like us, then you always need to work out how to have a day out and exercise the dog at the same time. The gardens around Buckfastleigh Station are dog friendly (on a lead), but also really child friendly too. There is so much beautiful space to picnic and play. Also, right at the back of the car park at Buckfastleigh Station, is a small gate that leads to a flat woodland walk, along the banks of The River Dart. It is an absolutely beautiful, short, flat, buggy friendly walk, that will only last twenty minutes or so. It is worth noting there is plenty of free, shady parking at Buckfastleigh, so if you do decide to have a full day out, and need to leave the dog for a couple of hours, then the car can safely be parked under the trees.
Also in the car park at Buckfastleigh station is Buckfast Butterflies and Dartmoor Otter Sanctuary (www.ottersandbutterflies.co.uk).
At the other end of the railway line from Buckfastleigh is Totnes Littlehempston Railway Station, where Totnes Rare Breeds Farm (www.totnesrarebreeds.co.uk/) is situated. To get to the Rare Breeds Farm, without travelling by steam train, you have to walk from Totnes. This is a beautiful short walk crossing the River Dart and passing by some lovely meadows that would be a great picnic spot. The Rare Breeds Farm itself is fantastic; one of the best days out you could hope to get in Devon. The Owl Experience is fantastic and the lady who runs it is incredibly knowledgeable and extremely friendly. Everyone is given a bag of animal food upon arrival and it is hilarious going in the pens with the various animals. My kiddies think this is the best day out ever. There is a vintage tractor to climb all over, bird hides, green areas to relax on, various chickens wandering around – really this is the best of the best!
I generally take a picnic with me wherever I go but this is one place I would really recommend going to the café. The food there is excellent and the portions are huge, freshly prepared and served by the loveliest staff. You can sit outside the café in the beautiful garden, alongside the railway tracks and watch the trains coming in and out of the station. Fantastic! For the doggy families, you need to know you cannot take your dog into the Rare Breeds Farm but you can leave the dog outside in the café garden, which is shady and safe.
In terms of prices, if you are local, there is a locals’ card that costs £8 per person, for two years, and gives you half price entry to the Rare Breeds Farm, South Devon Railway, and the Otters and Butterflies Sanctuary mentioned above. Each person in the family needs the £8 card but what you spend on the two year pass can be made back in a couple of visits, and the savings could be well worth the initial outlay. There are combination tickets for the three attractions (trains, Rare Breeds and Otters and Butterflies). There are so many different prices, depending on what you want to do, that it is best to check the website for more details: http://www.southdevonrailway.co.uk.
The other two railway stations we visit occasionally are Paignton and Kingswear. Sometimes if we have to go to Paignton to visit a particular shop, or we are passing by on the way back from Torquay then we pop into the station for a cup of tea because it is a lovely place to go. The café is really nice, newly refurbished and there are toys to play with, which means that everyone is happy!
Kingwear is great for other reasons, it is on one of our regular dog walks along the river bank or through the woods and the lure of visiting the station at the end of a dog walk is enough to keep the kiddies going. There is a little museum here to look in, and the café is good. Don’t forget, if you do decide to travel on the train and you are local, you can get half price travel, if you have the locals’ ticket. This needs to be bought at Paignton Station and you need proof of your address and a photo. It costs £2. (Check the restrictions on half price tickets before you go in case the deals are not running on the day you want.) If you are not local but you want to travel on the train, there are many combinations of train tickets and passes that can be found at http://www.dartmouthrailriver.co.uk/
Hope you enjoy the railways as much as we do! •
