An a-maze-ing experience (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Surprises hiding round every corner at York attraction

9:06am Monday 23rd August 2010 in Days Out By Sally Clifford

York Maze really is a great day out, with something for everyone.

Created from more than 1.5 million maize plants and covering an area larger than 15 Wembley football pitches, York Maze is one of the largest mazes in the world.

The maize is planted late April, early May. The paths are plotted by GPS, a type of satnav system, and the design is cut into it early June ready for the July opening.

Farmer Tom Pearcy, the brains behind York Maze, explains when the maze closes, the plants are cut down and used for cattle feed. Interestingly, the cattle produce the fertiliser to grow the following year’s maize!

Each year visitors are challenged to navigate a different design. This year’s paths are plotted in the form of a spitfire with the words ‘“Never Forget 1940 to 2010” commemorating the Battle of Britain.

Having no sense of direction, I was a little apprehensive about entering. Fortunately, my better half has an excellent sense of direction, so off we trotted with Alex marching forth, turning the hand-held map this way and that to seek out our destinations.

Striding along, we reached each numbered stage guarded by the wooden carved creatures of the Maze Monster, Excalibur, Shark Attack, Dinosaur, the Ent and the Minotaur.

Viewing towers give a fantastic vantage of the 40-acre site which this year quite rightly picked up the mantle of visitor attraction of the year in the York Tourism Awards.

Our little girl, Katy, relished the responsibility of carrying the compass. She enjoyed trying to fathom it all out, but it seemed Dad had it sewn up more or less from the start.

Challenge completed, we stopped briefly for an ice cream before heading off to explore the many more fun-filled and action-packed activities.

The inflatable jumping pillow was an instant attraction for Katy, who loves bouncing around. Eager to try the giant inflatable slide, she excitedly navigated the steep steps and loved whizzing down, although she wasn’t too eager to repeat the experience.

We worked up an appetite clambering up and down the nearby hay bale mountain, so we broke off briefly from the attractions for some lunch. There is a cafe and catering unit and plenty of tables and ground space for spreading out your picnic mat if you prefer to take your own.

Refreshed, we headed over to the sand and water play where Katy loved moving mounds of sand around on the digger apparatus. She also loved playing with the water pump and scaling the apparatus in the climbing zone.

After exhausting the play area, it was on to the Monkey Mayhem tractor ride. Climbing aboard our trailer, we headed off with our guide, Dave, who explained the problem they were having with monkeys.

We soon discovered that the rather large water gun at Dave’s disposal was used to water down the cheeky chimps who popped out as we journeyed through.

The “monkeys” retaliated, spritzing us with water from their portable carriers. There was a brief water fight between our guide Dave and the guide in the second trailer transporting visitors around – it’s all part of the plot – but it was merely a squirt and hardly sufficient to wear waterproofs.

Escaping the mayhem, we explored the trickery of optical illusions. The Maze of Illusions is a particularly entertaining place – the sight of ourselves in the curved mirrors had us in stitches. Trying to solve the optical illusions was great fun too.

Keeping youngsters entertained can be challenging, but with so much to see and do here they’ve got it down to a fine art.

Families resting in the picnic area in between activities can expect a visit from the Magic Hatter and his sidekick performing tricks and expertly bending balloons into all sorts of shapes and characters.

Meeting the farm animals, the pigs frolicking about in the mud, the cows chewing the cud and hens strutting their stuff delighted Katy, as did the Water Wars, where families and friends become opponents pitching water balloons at each other.

With so much to see and do, we hadn’t realised how swiftly time was pressing on. We had to head back, so we were unable to see the pig racing or the electric quad bikes. Nevertheless, we decided to save those for a future visit for there is certainly no doubt we’ll be back once again to be part of this amazing experience.

Factfile * York Maze is located close to the Air Museum, sat-nav reference YO19 5LT.

* It is open until Sunday, September 5, seven days a week from 10am until 6.30pm, last admission 4.30pm.

* For more information, visit yorkmaze.com or call 01904 607341.