Weekends are always for adventures and when we stumbled from our cosy little burrow last summer into Battersea Park we hit upon treasure.  The Park is situated just south of the river between the Albert and the Chelsea Bridge.  We drove and parked up at one of the many car-parks around the park.  We got all of our paraphernalia out of the car: buggy, 2 children, nappy-bag … (you know the drill) and hoped that the trip was worthwhile. We were aiming for the children’s zoo that we had heard about, but before even getting there we saw a boy driving around the park lanes in a cross between a bike and a go-kart.  Then we saw 5 or 6 more children come flashing past in similar vehicles — there was no way that coincidence could have situated 6 recumbent bike owners on this one park path? It turns out Battersea Park is one of only two parks in London (Dulwich being the other) where London Recumbents hires bikes, trikes, tandems and various other bike-like contraptions (hiring starts at Easter and goes through until the end of Summer).  It looks like so much fun, and in fact Time Out called it “the best family biking this side of Amsterdam” — it must be good, hey Esther?

We carried on our journey to the zoo which was a perfect-sized animal treat for pre-schoolers.  Donkeys, Otters, Chickens, Pigs, Meerkats and Monkeys to name but a few — all really close up and the zoo is small enough to be a distracting hour or so without it being overwhelming.

During the Summer months the park also has a boating lake and a land-train that can be picked up from outside the Adventure Playground.  A really fun family day out.

-Mo.x