Souter Lighthouse – Cadbury’s Easter Egg Hunt

Its the Sunday of the Easter Weekend and it was time for another Easter Egg Hunt. This would be the last one for us this year. The problem was the weather was really starting to turn. The wind was picking up and Souter Lighthouse is right on the coast (being a lighthouse ‘n all!).

Catherine: It’s raining I’m not doing the egg hunt
Kids: But we really want to do it!
Me: Ok we’ll do it but we have to run!

Souter Lighthouse Easter Egg Hunt

It had started to rain and it was pretty grim. As we asked the cashier at the lighthouse entrance about the hunt, she pointed us towards the van in the car park. Cat parked herself up in the cafe, with a nice large cup of coffee. I really wished I was staying in too, but my kids come first, then coffee is a close second.

The egg hunt here was £3 per person. Wallington Hall was £2.50 while Washington Old Hall was £1.50. To push to the end, the chocolate bunny was the same at the end. So maybe the National Trust venue benefits from the sale of the trail and chocolate and it’s their decision on price?.

The Hunt

Here the Easter Egg Hunt was based around a circular route with brightly coloured Easter eggs set into the ground. On the back of each egg was a letter. Collect all 10 letters and it formed an anagram of a word. The hunt took approximately 12 minutes, we were running and we developed some good team work. Imogen ran a head and shouted out the letters if no one was nearby. I wrote them down and Abigail held my hand and looked cute.

We returned to the van and were handed our trophy chocolate rabbit.

Souter Lighthouse

You need to pay for parking here, unless you are a National Trust member. We are members, but needed to ask a staff member for a window sticker as we’d never received one.

We couldn’t travel all this way with out heading up the lighthouse. The steps up the tower are very steep and both Catherine and the kids were nervous climbers. Then you get to a landing.

Catherine didn’t go any further as the final ascent is a semi vertical ladder of a staircase. The view from the top is pretty cool, even on an overcast miserable day. If it was good weather I’m sure you could have seen… further over the sea.

The light was shielded with a sail cloth set of curtains. I assumed this was because it was out of service. I asked the volunteer and it was more about practicality than operation.  As the  light is magnified before it is cast out to sea, if the sun shines direct into the lens, it heats up the bulbs and blows then out. It obvious when you think about it.

Next to the base of the lighthouse is the Lighthouse Keepers cottage. Here you get to explore the life of the keeper. The kitchen is set out and they have flat plate irons to try you hand at pre steam ironing. Abigail thought it was amusing as she followed the instructions. Step one Put the Iron on the stove to heat up. Step 2 test it is hot enough by spitting on the iron, if it sizzles and the spit runs off its ready. Obviously we weren’t spitting up or was the stove hot. You are allowed to touch items here, where at other National Trust properties it is a viewing opportunity only. There was a sign over the dolls house in the kids bedroom, which said that you can play, but do not undress the dolls and to be careful with the doll’s furniture.

Another room that the kids enjoyed was the exploration room, which featured a wooden boat, a display about smuggling and a set of magnetic flags to try your hand at semaphore.

Hidden behind the smugglers barrel is a television screen that amused Abigail the most. Mounted to the top of the lighthouse is a remote control video camera, which you can control from a joystick by this screen. We span it around and looked back in to the lighthouse, but the staff member quickly disappeared. We checked on our car in the car park. but we could also see a boat out at sea. Then Abigail took control of the joystick and we saw, sky, then wall, the sky, then wall, grass and then sky again.

Souter Lighthouse is quite a good National Trust afternoon out, it offers a different, unique adventure. The Kids enjoyed the climbing up the lighthouse, but not the climbing down, which is quite precarious. It would have been a better trip out if the weather had been warmer and dryer, but that’s what the British weather is like.