With the sunny weather continuing, we decided to embark upon another one of the Books About Town trails and find the book bench sculptures around Greenwich.
We started at Greenwich station where we found the first bench of the day (no. 16 in our running total of benches): Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Jessica loved the bright colours on this bench and both she and Sophie were very happy to sit together on the bench and pose for a photo. The next bench – Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary – was a short distance away along Royal Hill and then we made our way towards Greenwich Park for the next few benches, finding bench no. 18 – On the Origin of Species – just inside the entrance to the park.
Once inside the park, we were on a book bench hunt trying to find the “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” bench – not helped by the lack of detail on the Google map we’d printed out and it seemed other bench hunters were in a similar situation. After a lot of zooming in to the map on our phones, we eventually realised it was near the Flower Garden lake and managed to find it!
The next bench – The Time Machine – was next to the Wolfe Statue by the Observatory, looking out over stunning views across the park. Getting back down the hill was fun with the double buggy (although Jessica preferred to ride on Daddy’s shoulders instead)! Bench no. 21 – Jungle Book – already had a little occupant in the shape of a little blue hand-knitted toy which had obviously been left behind. We took our photo and left the toy sitting on the bench in the hope that his owner would return and find him and then headed on to the Elmer the Elephant bench.
The final bench inside the park was Captain Scott’s Autobiography and by this point in the day, the sky was becoming ominously dark and we began to suspect that the rain would call a halt to the challenge. The next two benches on our list – The Canterbury Tales and The Railway Children – were situated near to the Cutty Sark but when we arrived at the location for The Canterbury Tales bench, we discovered that it had been returned to the library for repairs. By the time we reached The Railway Children bench, the rain was starting to fall and, knowing we were going to be unable to complete the challenge in any event, we decided to leave the trail unfinished and return another day, having managed to visit eight out of the twelve benches on the Greenwich Trail.
Whilst the benches inside the park were more difficult to find, this was a much nicer trail from Jessica’s perspective as she was able to run about more freely inside the park which she thoroughly enjoyed. We almost managed to reach the halfway point in the challenge having now visited 24 out of the 50 benches.
This was our second book bench hunt, having previously completed the City Trail.
Linking in with Coombe Mill for Country Kids:
I just love these benches! I would love to do this trail 🙂 I’ll look forward to your next update!
Thanks Sara, we’ve having lots of fun with the trails and have done another one today – will be posting an update on that in the next few days 🙂
What fabulous benches! We’ve done various similar trails locally, but I quite like the idea of sitting on these benches. We found that other people on the trail would often tell us about the next one to find. #CountryKids
We’ve bumped into quite a few people following the trails so far – the benches are quite popular at the moment! 🙂
These look amazing! And what a fun day for you all too! It looks lovely! Your little ones are gorgeous.
Thank you so much! We have been having so much fun hunting for them 🙂
Great benches. I love that concept! My favourite one is the Elmer one.
They are lovely – think my favourite so far is the Wind in the Willows one on the City trail. We’re really enjoying trying to find all the different benches 🙂
What stunning art work on the benches! A great trail to complete with the whole family and a lovely way to get out and about exploring the area too. Thanks for linking up your lovely family photos with Country Kids.
Love how different each bench is – the artwork is gorgeous and we have been enjoying trying to find them all. Lovely to join in with #CountryKids again 🙂
I’m so looking forward to checking out some of these benches. Not sure we’ll see more than 1 or 2 as a full day in London is going to be a long walk for 3yo as it is. Looks like you’re having lots of fun finding them – always great when there’s a target to reach
There’s a few very close together by Tower Bridge if you want to see several without having to walk very far. We’re enjoying the challenge so far 🙂
Wow those are nice artworks! I love the Elmer the elephant one! My son’s fave as well #countrykids
The Elmer one is lovely – it is one of my favourites too 🙂