IT takes me about forty minutes to drive to work every day, so the idea of taking a family holiday at a destination at which we can arrive in under an hour and a half did not seem like much of a break. Our usual holidays since our first daughter was born, have been a week or two in France or Spain, either early in the season or into September when the children’s return to school has thinned out the crowds and the price. I have holidayed in Britain before, the bulk of my childhood holidays where spent on the North Wales coast and very enjoyable I remember them being too. But Wales is another country, just about I know, but another country all the same. Where we were headed this time was barely outside of my home county of Lancashire.

It is with all this in mind my wife and I, along with our young two daughters packed the car headed up the M6 for a week at Holgate’s Silverdale Caravan Park. The Silverdale site is moments after a Welcome to Cumbria sign and sits on 100 acres of very well maintained grounds. If you are staying on site you have access to an indoor swimming pool with a Jacuzzi, steam room and sauna. The swimming pool was a massive hit with my eldest daughter who became semi aquatic spending nearly as much time in the pool as she did on dryland. There are two play areas on site where the children were happy to pass hours playing and making new friends during what turned out the be a week which included the hottest day in a July since records began.

One evening, after yet another two hour stint it the pool, we ate our evening meal in the onsite restaurant. The food served includes a real mix of dishes with pub classics such as scampi and pie sitting next to a range of salad and pizza options. After our meal our eldest daughter played in the soft play area which is attached to the restaurant with a group of other kids, which meant my wife and I were able to relax with a drink from the bar while our little one slept after her day in the pool. Having never stayed in a caravan, I was not quite sure what to expect, I sort of imagined a confined space with fold down beds and a stinking chemical toilet. This could not have been further from the truth, it was sheer luxury, we had a large living area with a kitchen that had a cooker, fridge freezer and even a dishwasher. The kid’s bedroom had two nice sized single beds while the master bedroom had an ensuite bathroom and a walk in wardrobe. Having been fortunate with the weather we ate most of our meals out on the decked patio, which had an impressive view down across the site and out onto the sandbanks at Arnside.

With all that the Silverdale site offered it would have been easy to stay on the site but with such beautiful scenery you simply have to venture to see what kind of adventures lay in store for adults and children. In Bowness we took a Windermere lake cruise to Brockholes. There we climbed up into an adventure playground created by suspending nets between the trees at the Treetop Nets attraction. Once my eldest had got over her apprehensions she was bouncing around and the struggle became not to get her on and enjoying it, but getting her off again. After a picnic lunch we jumped on the boat again, back in Bowness we visited The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction which pulls off the remarkable feat of being as interesting and impressive to its adult audience as it is to children.

The other attractions were animal themed. The Lakes Aquarium in Ulverston will now always be the place for my wife and I were faced with thousands of mostly unanswerable questions about the poison frogs that we were bombarded with from my daughter.

The South Lakes Safari Zoo was a really good day out for the whole family and top marks to the staff there who were able to answer most of my daughters questions - however bizarre they became and yes poison frogs, even though they had none at the zoo, were on the agenda. Our final day out was to Greenland Farm which with its combination of animals to pet and brilliant outside and inside play areas even managed to stem the flow of frog questions for the day. The girls were able to get up close to a variety of different beasts both large and small and with a donkey ride included in the entrance fee this was a real winner.

The seven days flew by and before we know it, we are packing the car and heading back down the M6 for home. The lesson learnt is clear though, its not where you travel to or how far you go, what really matters is what waiting for you when you get there and it seems that we have just as much to offer here in the North West of England as anywhere else you might travel to.