Cleveley Mere

October, 2016.

Cleveley Mere is a lakeside lodge destination with a picturesque 34 acre lake surrounded by activities and 7 luxury lodges. Costing £125 per night for the Minnows Lodge- you may think it is steep, however, read this long list of what was included in the price:

(This is taken directly off their website)

• Free parking next to lodge
• Friendly welcome
• Gated 34 acre site
• Wide screen TV
• Use of 22 boats
• 37 mountain bikes
• 4 four man pedalos
• 12 sit on kayaks and Canadian canoe
• Riverside fire pit kit with marsh mellows, fire lighters and kindling
• 9 hole crazy golf course
• Fresh eggs (courtesy of our chickens)
• Wine and chocolates
• Free WI-FI in every lodge
• CD player with free good choice of cd’s
• You can borrow wellies
• Ping pong table and spiral slide
• Children’s play area with fab zip line
• Castellated kids slide and swings
• Children’s 16′ trampoline
• Landscaped enchanted water side walk ways
• Den with pool and football tables
• Piano, drum sets, Giant connect 4
• Pirate, pixie and cowboy zones
• New giant 7’ Shrek & 7’Kung Fu Panda
• Summer House with taxidermy collection and Cricket club
• 17 piers on our 24 acre lake
• iPod stations and Wii Consoles with games
• Guitars & swing ball, indoor ping pong
• Use of giant outdoor Jenga and Giant chess set
• Skittles and French bowls sand lane
• 100 pet runner and tufty ducks
• Black and white swans, white and coloured peacocks

Welcoming

When they mentioned we would get a warm welcome included, they weren’t kidding. When we first arrived, we pulled up our car and were greeted by the owner, Roger. We were stood for about 40 minutes talking. Roger was telling us a little bit about himself but mainly about everything we can do onsite and all the services. He definitely made us feel welcome.

My favourite part was when he clapped his hands together and shouted “we have new guests, come on everyone”. Feeling a bit scared, as I didn’t know what was about to happen, we were handed a slice of bread each. We then had some chickens and ducks at our feet waiting for some bread. I felt like Cinderella.

Once Roger explained everything, he handed us over to his colleague (whom I’m guessing is his relative) Lewis. Lewis took us to our lodge ‘Minnows’ and shown us around and told us about the local area if we wanted to go out for the day or to get any food, which we found very useful.

Minnows Lodge

The lodge we stayed in was perfect for couples, even couples with a small child. It had floor to ceiling windows, oak flooring, very comfortable double bed, open plan lounge, fully equipped kitchen with a dishwasher, freezer, fridge you name it!

The lodge alone has loads of activities to do if there was a dull day, like TV, iPod doc, Wii and DVD player. The best feature was the spiral staircase taking you up to a mezzanine which would be ideal for children to stay up there.

Our lodge was the first lodge to your right when you enter at reception. It overlooked the lake – which was so stunning and was in perfect reach to grab a boat or have a game of mini golf.

Wildlife

I’ve never found Chickens to be much fun, but they really are! They were always outside our lodge, always on the look out for food.

On our last evening and last morning there, we thought we would try clapping like Roger did to see if the animals would come, so we could feed them our last balm (yes I said balm). Rich clapped. I filmed. Every single bird and duck swarmed in, walking out one by one out of the lake. It was hilarious! I couldn’t believe it. We even had a turkey pecking at our feet – whom we name Carl for no reason whatsoever.

There was also a swan – which we named… Brian, again for no reason whatsoever. Just for fun.

He followed us EVERYWHERE.

The Lake and Boats

I thought the lake was a big enough size, if it was too big I probably wouldn’t have gone out in a boat due to my fear of open waters. At every point of walking around the lake, it was calm and gentle.

We went out on a boat three times. It’s so fresh and relaxing to be able to row out into the middle of a lake and just float around. Rich took charge of rowing our boats in and out of the boat house and did about 95% of the rowing. I had a go after risking standing up in the middle of the lake on the boat to switch over. I thought I was doing a pretty swish job, Rich didn’t think we moved much…

Our last outing on to the lake, we decided to use a pedalo boat. I had totally forgotten how swiftly they move! We had a laugh trying to peddle as fast as we could!

The only frightening moment when being stranded in the middle of the lake was when Brian The Swan appeared out of nowhere right at the edge of the boat looking like he was eyeing it up to jump in! I panicked and told Rich to row faster and get us out of there. But Brian could swim faster than we could row – and therefore followed us all-around the lake.

Bikes

We didn’t use the bikes too much as it is easy enough to walk around, but we thought we would give it ago. There is a selection of bikes along with helmets and pads etc.

Its a massive help, and saves you the hassle of fitting your own bike in the boot! You are also welcome to keep your bike at the lodge during your stay so you’re not fighting over any bikes or forgetting which one you previously had.

Play area

They had a trampoline. That is all. Wherever there is a trampoline, there is a Jenny.

The play area looked handmade and very retro. They had a trampoline, zip line, swings, tyre swings, slides and more.

It was in a small confined space just off the main walk way – but it totally worked!

Games room

The games room has been purely set up to keep children occupied. However, me and Rich had a jolly ol’ time! Rich had a plinky plonk on the piano and drum kit. He then beat me at both pool and foosball.

The room isn’t very big, but enough to have-a-go of everything that’s in there. There’s all kinds of instruments and games. A child’s dream if you ask me.

The Forbidden Garden 

I didn’t know what to expect when Roger told us about this. As he kept mentioning famous figures.

Taking the second path alongside the lake, you come to ‘Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ set up and when you open up the wardrobe guess who is inside….Yoda! Walking further on you come up to Kung Fu Panda and Shrek, followed by Lara Croft, Indiana Jones and Batman. These statues have all been set up so you can take silly photos with them.

When you walk further along it brings you to the games room, and before it you come to a big ping pong table, and loads more games to play including cardboard cut outs you can put your face in.

Cricket club

The Cricket Club is a cricket collection collated by Roger himself.

It’s pretty impressive. There are so many cricket bats, balls and memorabilia – including some autographed objects.

Taxidermy

I didn’t go in. Stuffed animals freaks me out. Rich on the other hand went in, came out and didn’t say much – the vacant expression on his face spoke for itself.

Mini Golf, Bowls, Swing-ball and Giant Chess

Mini golf was fun! We played twice, drew first time round- however I did get a ‘hole-in-one’ so surely that means I won, right? and then Rich won second time round. It consisted of 9 short holes, they were quick and fun!

I’ve always loved playing bowls – no sure if that’s something I should say out loud. But it’s fun, I can be quite a dark horse at sports like this. It was next to the min golf, so you could have loads of fun in a compact space.

The Giant Chess was in the middle of the mini golf – didn’t really get round to playing it but we did take a few funny pictures.

Swing-ball is possibly one of my favourite garden pastimes. We didn’t do too well to be honest as the pole kept coming out of the ground. Nevertheless, we had a ball!

BBQ and Campfire

Our first night in the lodge, after we had had our tea, we decided to have a BBQ and have drinks. This is one of my favourite things to do. We sat there, ate food, toasted a few marshmellows, drank beer and wine, and Rich sang me some songs (there was a guitar in the lodge!!)

Beanie hat in the picture is from Greedy Gremlin. Get yours now!

Alongside the lake are two paths you can take, when you take the outer path, you’ll pass fire pits that have been built with stone, and hand-made seats and table out of trees.

We decided on our last night we would get the campfire set (complimentary which included marshmallows!) and have a chill by the lake, stuffing our faces with toasted marshmallows.

Rich was in his element, building a fire, looking for things to burn (please note: you can only burn things that aren’t growing – so twigs that have fallen down). I sat right next to the fire as it was ever so slightly chilly and warmed myself up waiting for us to toast our next marshmellow.

The Barn at Scorton

This wasn’t what I expected. It was based in a quaint little village. The main restaurant opened up quite big and was made to look like a fancy barn.

The food was delicious as we went for breakfast, we also had breakfast desert and had a lovely jam and cream scone.

To your right from the entrance is a shop, which we spent a while in. It had a massive range of sweet treats, decorations, gifts etc. It felt very Christmassy due to its festive charm offering chutneys, jams, chocolates and tree decorations.

White Scar Caves

White Scar Caves is the longest show cave in Britain. The caves are based in North Yorkshire in Ingleton. The tour is 80 minutes long and cost £9.95 per adult and £6.50 per child.

It was so interesting learning all about the science of caves. Which is something I’ve never really thought of. Underground, you discover streams, waterfalls, mud pools and a massive battlefield cavern of stalactites!

The Cave itself consists of; two low-roof passages, which was quite a snug fit but made it more fun. It didn’t make me feel uncomfortable but I guess if you suffer with severe claustrophobia you may not like this kind of thing. 90% of the tour is on a flat surface, however you do have a stage of climbing up 97 steps. The majority of the flooring is grid like so obviously heels would be a massive no, but this would also mean no walking sticks etc. There are some tight fits that my backpack did struggle to go through.

It was about 8 degrees in there, so you are advised to wear a coat as its damp and wet down there – better to be on the safe side! There is lighting down through as well and hand rails.

Wallings

All I can say is…this killed us. Not literally, but we had a major sugar coma. Rich ordered a ‘White Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwich’ and I had the ‘Toffee Trio’ which consisted of three big scoops of  different toffee ice cream, a sweet waffle with toffee sauces poured over that had fudge pieces in and a swirl of whipped cream. It was delicious, but we were both defeated. Highly recommend anyone who has a sweet tooth!

Wallings is a farm, so they have the main farm, a restaurant that included a shop that had the most amazing sweets and cakes that you could buy. All of their food is made with all their fresh produce made from the farm, so it’s all lovely.

Barton Grange Garden Centre

Quick fact: the garden centre was officially opened by HRH Princess Anne Barton.

I love garden centres, there is just something so fun and warm about a garden centre. Especially this one! It was huge! They also had their Christmas section set up already, it was fabulous! They had grand displays of everything Christmas-related.

My pockets were burning, but I managed to hold back!

Overall

We had such a lovely few days together at Cleveley Mere and the surrounding areas. It was exactly what we needed, somewhere to relax and chill, but still have an adventure.

Cleveley Mere ticked all the boxes.