Sometimes we have one of those spur of the moment ‘where shall we go?’ kinds of days, when we don’t want to drive too far but we want to breathe, to get out of the city. Somewhere that’s safe but we can learn and explore.

Today we found a new place – Selsdon Wood Nature Reserve 200 acres which is just outside Croydon, across from Sanderstead and about twenty minutes drive for us. We found it by me checking for woods near Banstead Woods (which we almost went to) and seeing it had a five-star review – and you can see why.

It’s very basic, and is a wood in National Trust owned land, co-run with Croydon Council – so don’t expect fancy gift shops and the like here – although there’s a giant wooden bear at the car park.

Instead you’ve got woods, butterflies, orchids, insects, birds, trees, buttercups, bluebells and many other things – we spotted a rope swing (slightly too high for H) and I bet there’s more when you investigate. Families playing hide and seek in the woods, people walking their dogs… it’s a great open space made of five fields and several walkways (all with names) and somewhere to explore and wander around.

There’s plenty of activities going on from time to time too – check their website for more information.

So, what did we do? We walked into the woods (there’s tons of bluebells right now), through the fields, checked if H liked butter or not with a buttercup, blew a few dandelion clocks, spotted two different butterflies, listened in case we could hear a badger (we didn’t), got two different insects in her bug viewer (a millipede and a devil’s coachhorse beetle), and ticked off another of the ’50 Things’, making a grass trumpet (I was the expert at this and passed on my expert knowledge to Shaun and H) – the weather was good (sunny and cloudy) and there was some mud around but generally everywhere was accessible. If you go there after rain it’s definitely a wellies kind of place.

We’ve still a good section of the woods to explore so we’ll be back…. when it’s a sunny day!