Sunnyhurst Woods, Darwen

I took a trip to one of Lancashire's most under rated beauty spots.

Transcript

00:00This video is all about Sunnyhurst Wood in Darwin. Now you might not have heard about it.

00:07I certainly hadn't. I'm from Preston. I didn't know anything about it until I happened to work

00:12in Darwin. If you're from East Lancashire you're probably more familiar but I thought I'd shine a

00:17light on it because lots of other places get a lot more attention and this place is brilliant

00:22for a day out with the children at any time of the year but particularly in the summer during

00:27the school holidays. So there is a dedicated car park. I actually didn't use it. I was naughty

00:33and I parked up on Earnsdale Road which you can get to off the main Bolton Road through Darwin

00:39and there's some quite steep steps down into the wood or there's a more accessible slope down. We

00:48went down the slope and when you get there you're in a green oasis but it's a green oasis with so

00:55much going on. There's beautiful ornate bridges, there's the visitor centre, there's the old

01:03England kiosk, there's a bandstand, you can get to Darwin Tower, you can get to Earnsdale Reservoir

01:10but also what really spurred us on to visit was a paddling pool which is great for children and for dogs.

01:25What I noticed is there's absolutely loads of benches and picnic places for your visit. The water

01:32it looks a little bit brown but do you know what it wasn't dirty looking and I think that's just the

01:37natural sediment. There's so so many cute little bridges, waterfalls, little streams, places to dip

01:45your feet, the children pick up sticks and stones. We saw a rodeo go past us, meters in front of us.

01:52It was so much fun and yeah we did enjoy our picnic there. The benches probably have seen better days

01:59but they're there and there's plenty of bins as well. After our lunch we went exploring with the dog

02:05and we followed the paths past the bandstand and there was a sign for a reservoir. I didn't know

02:12which one it was, it turns out it was Earnsdale Reservoir but we followed it, messed around in

02:17the stream for a little bit and we went past the Ellis Gibson fish pond and that was a little bit

02:25overgrown, I'm not gonna lie. We carried on, there's been signs of obvious deforestation or woodland

02:31management going on and then yeah it was about, I don't know, half a mile. It wasn't that strenuous

02:38but it was a hot day so we got a little bit of a sweat up but we got to this beautiful place and

02:43it was well worth the trip. So all in all it probably took us, I don't know, two hours out of our day

02:49but I would highly recommend it to anybody.