There and Back

The scene that greeted us as we arrived at Dunwich Heathland to start, as it turned out, the Pirate Trail. Armed with a leaflet with the route marked, and a pen, we set off ! The heathland really looking colourful.  This was the object of our searches - a board with a clue printed on it, which had to be copied onto the leaflet ... such as this! One of the objectives of the day was for Izobelle to take her first photographs with her own camera. So lets photograph all sorts of things! Then perhaps Nana will help me fill in the clues. Then I can run onto the next clue! Then a rest while mummy tells me something I don`t quite believe! Although it was funny. These grown ups say this smells lovely, so we have a group sniff. Then mummy spotted this lovely caterpillar on the path which turned out to be an Emperor Moth or Saturnia pavonia (if you speak Latin) Then, having completed all the clue

We chose to go to Fermyn Woods Country Park as it has a reputation of having a large number and variety of butterflies. We booked into a B&B cottage nearby in the village of Sudborough in what appears to be a converted farm building in the back garden of the owners house. It was perfect, and at a really good price. But first, to the woods to see what was about in the afternoon sun! The whole area around the villages of Sudburough and Lowick, and also Fermyn Woods itself, were once part of the vast Rockingham Forest. It was named after the village of Rockingham, where the castle was a royal retreat. Over the years the forest shrank, and today only a patchwork of the north-eastern forest remains. The area became a royal hunting ground for King William I after the Norman conquest. The term forest represented an area of legal jurisdiction and remained so until the 19th century. The forest boundaries were set in 1299, although the boundaries returned to a smaller area as a resul