Find yourself in hedge mazes.
Saunders Farm features 10 mazes and other family-friendly activities
First, a confession. Fearing we’d be trapped for days, my family cheated and snuck through a hole to sheepishly emerge from the Mile Maze, made from 1,500 white spruce trees and featuring a three-storey cedar teepee-shaped lookout in the middle.
We had already done, and thoroughly enjoyed, several other mazes and we were running out of time at Saunders Farm, a 25-acre family destination in Munster, Ont., about 40 kilometres southwest of Ottawa.
Ten mazes – seven created with hedges, two made out of wood and one stone on-theground labyrinth – are the main attractions at Saunders, which is carved out of a working family farm.
Our family split up to do the Hampton Court Maze. It’s modelled after a famous British maze originally planted around 1700 and now one of the world’s oldest hedge mazes. While two of our party completed the Saunders version in record time, my part of the crew was left baffled, though we persevered and somehow eventually completed it by the book.
Most of the mazes here are full of twists, turns and dead ends but they aren’t all brain busters.
The Spiral Maze, for example, is made for a contemplative walk for a grown-up or a fun run for kids. There’s one way in and one way out; you can’t get lost within the three-foot-high cedar hedges.
But this place is about more than mazes. There’s enough to keep a family happy for several hours. We visited with three kids, ages 5, 9 and 12, all of whom gave the spot a thumbs up.
Among the highlights was the “jumping pillows” areas – where kids (and brave adults) can bounce on giant plastic, well, pillows, that act as trampolines. (See them in action at the Saunders Farm website, saundersfarm.com)
The farm also features a pedal-cart track and wagon rides through a forest. And bring the kids’ bathing suits because there’s a small water park, complete with water cannon.
Elaborate, well-maintained playgrounds will keep smaller kids smiling. There’s a wood pirate ship featuring a plank to walk; a big tree house play structure from which children can j ump on to a pile of hay; and a hill from which they can slide down the bumpy, 40-foot Witch Mountain Slide.
Parents will enjoy the three-storey observation tower from which you can take in much of the farm and sur- rounding countryside, and the farm shop, which features fresh baked goods and jams, as well as gifts.
In October, Saunders Farm turns into a Halloween theme park.
The Haunting Season, celebrating its 20th year in 2012, features spooky nighttime activities that are not recommended for children under 10 and look kind of scary to an old guy, too. They include “stalkers in the corn field of nightmares,” a haunted hayride and a creepy “barn of terror.”