A treasure trail around Topsham, Devon

One of my favourite ways to explore is simply to wander, to venture down the little side streets, to amble along looking for the quirky, the picturesque, the unexpected. It’s a strategy that tends to work if combined with a bit of research (otherwise it’s easy to bumble down roads running parallel to all the interesting bits) – and works best with the right wandering companion.

My husband always wants to know exactly where we’re going. And my daughter is also happier when there’s a goal. She’ll pootle along at a snail’s pace, checking out every snail when it suits her – but when it doesn’t, I need an answer to ‘are we nearly there yet’ by having a ‘there’ to aim for.

So on our day out in Topsham, Devon over half-term, I came up with a plan: buying one of the routes from Treasure Trails – and following it turned out to be one of the best ways to see Topsham with kids.

There are 1,000 different trails for destinations around the UK, with variations including murder mysteries – such as the one we didn’t get time to follow on our day out in Salisbury – a spy version, and the treasure hunts.

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The Topsham treasure trail centered around the story of a ship laden with treasure, attacked by pirates who buried it in a secret location… now a new map showing undiscovered islands has come to light.

Your goal is to follow the trail, find the clues and cross off the locations on that map until you’re left with just one.

Minnie was a little discouraged to realise there wouldn’t actually be gold at the end (or ice cream, as there’d been a run on supplies during our unexpectedly warm October visit) but even though it’s aimed at kids over six, she and her imaginary parrot – essential for any self-respecting treasure hunter – were ready to get stuck in to the clues. 

As she’s making the first steps towards reading, she could help work out some of the places on the map, which got a tick from me for education disguised as fun.

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The second bonus was that it helpfully plotted a route around the whole of Topsham, taking us from the town down to the quayside, along a lovely seafront walk, past a nature reserve and through some of the historic streets, throwing in little facts along the way. 

Once Exeter‘s major port, with a thriving industry from the nearby textile trade and a quay dating back to 1316, it has historic links to the Netherlands and houses that still date from the 17th century.

It’s not somewhere with a set of sights to tick off and specific things to do, but it’s incredibly pretty – and as we discovered, there’s plenty to see in Topsham with kids if you know where to look.

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Each trail is slightly different, although you get a guide to the amount of time it’ll take. Ours covered two miles and you’re advised to spend around two hours, which was pretty accurate, considering we speeded up a bit at the end as I took over clue finding.

You could also easily let it last longer if we’d stopped to explore the nature reserve, for example, or at one of the very tempting outdoor tables at the waterfront pubs. Ah well.

Once we’d worked out our starting point, the directions were really clear even for me (I have an impressive ability to always choose the wrong way out of two) and after a few clues, I’d started to work out the type of thing we needed to look for.

Scouring the buildings for the answers we needed meant I spotted all kinds of details which I’d ordinarily have blundered straight past.

Helpfully if you get totally stumped along the way, you can text the company for free (replies charged at standard network rate) for a maximum of three answers – I’ll admit we needed two.

Once I’d suspected which building we needed but had managed to miss the answer itself and didn’t fancy retracing our steps, then by the last clue, Minnie was getting vocally tired, our parking was about to expire and I decided a little help was required to finish.

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The trails market themselves as ‘the fun way to explore’ – and you won’t find me disagreeing.

Without the route, I can’t imagine we would have ventured quite as far around Topsham (or I’d have panicked slightly that we were lost and retraced our steps) and I certainly wouldn’t have found quite as many quirky stories and details about this lovely Devon town.

We might not have a guarantee of autumn sunshine any more, but this certainly isn’t the last trail we’ll be trying. Next time, I might even pack some treasure…

Need to know: Devon treasure trails

The trails cost £6.99 – I bought both of ours – and we printed them at home. You can also get a printed version sent to you, for a fee, or a personalised printed version.

You could view the PDFs on a tablet too (or a phone if you’re happy to squint a bit) but it’s more fun to be able to cross the answers off as you go.

There are driving and cycling trails too, but most are walking trails with the majority wheelchair and pushchair accessible. You’ll get suggestions about parking as well, plus there’s a small map online to show you the start point.

If your children are enrolled in the Children’s University, your completed trails can gain hours towards the awards – Treasure Trails has more details.

For more ideas of days out in Devon with kids, check out my ultimate guide to Devon for families or find more ideas of things to do in Exeter with kids

PIN FOR LATER: THINGS TO DO IN TOPSHAM WITH KIDS

Images copyright MummyTravels

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