Revisiting RSPB’s Minsmere in Suffolk

It’s been a whole 7 years since my last visit to RSPB Minsmere! I only know it was this long ago because I wrote about it here. Please have a read if you are interested in visiting in winter.

My memory is terrible so I remember very little from our last trip besides seeing a munjac deer! My blog has been a bit of a lifesaver when it comes to trying to remember where I’ve been before.

This August bank holiday weekend we were looking for RSPB’s to visit and this is the only one in the Suffolk area that has facilities for families. So we headed back here taking our 2 year old for the first time.

We started with the visitor centre admiring all the cute soft toys and bundles of trinkets our toddler would happily grab off the shelves if given the chance!

This centre has a lovely little cafe and shop but more importantly a massive outdoor space. This is great on a warm day and we were lucky to be able to sit out here, take a break and enjoy the sunshine partway in to our day.

All fueled up, we were finally ready to head off on our adventure. The map gave us many options.

We headed for the Woodland trail as it was the shortest and I remembered that was the one we did last time. En-route we had to walk part of the Island Mere trail to get there. We ended up being completely side tracked and walking part of this took far longer than we thought. Perks of having a toddler who wanders off to discover anything she thinks looks interesting!

First we saw the ‘Wildwood Adventure and Build a Den’!

We had lots of fun messing around in here, exploring the wildlife and avoiding hornets!

Then we headed for The Discovery Centre. It was Sunday and Bank Holiday weekend so this was closed but despite this, we still had plenty to occupy us outside.

There were little plaques with insects and animals on dotted around for children to find.

There was also a cave to crawl through which Hilda found very exciting to keep disappearing in to!

After our wild adventure in the woods we decided to head back to the car and grab the pram. We wanted to walk some of the Coast trail and we knew that little legs can only go so far. After all that running it was definitely nap time!

So we stopped at the cafe on the way back and tested out a chair that was just the right size for our 2 year old.. What do you think?

We also got in some silly time..

The Coast trail is labelled as a 2 hour trek so we knew we’d walk only a fraction of this. Just like clockwork, Hilda fell asleep in the pram straight away. This gave us some time to enjoy the sea breeze and wander along some of the coast.

The Coast Trail takes you to part of The National Trust Dunwich Heath and also King Charles III’s Coast Path. We walked only a small portion of this trail from the cafe to the sea so I can’t comment on the walk but we enjoyed what we did get to do. I can imagine walking all three trails would make for a jam packed day!

We may have only touched the surface with just a fraction of what RSPB’s Minsmere has to offer but we had a great day out nonetheless. I love this reserve as it has so much to offer. Despite us having been before we enjoyed a completely different experience to our visit in winter doing the woodland trail.

It’s one of the costlier RSPB reserves in comparison to those I’ve visited previously coming in at £10pp but i’d say you get what you pay for. The facilities here are great and you could easily spend a few hours here walking the trails.