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West Midlands 2026 - A Chocolatey Adventure (Day 1)

When people asked us where we were going on our summer holiday this year, I'm not sure they were that impressed when we said 'Birmingham' or the 'West Midlands'. However, there was a very good reason why we were heading to this area of the country, and that was to have a special 48 hours staying with the giraffes at West Midlands Safari Park. When we previously embarked on a similar trip, we headed down on the morning of the first day but found that this meant we didn't arrive until mid-morning, so we decided to do things differently this time and sandwich our visit within a few days away. Therefore, to start our trip, we headed to one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Birmingham area - Cadbury World. This is somewhere that Nicole had been a few times as a child but was a first for Shannon. 

We had booked onto an early afternoon time slot at Cadbury World, so after setting off from home we made our way to a National Trust property for a quick look around and walk. We opted for Moseley Old Hall as this was on our route to the south of Birmingham without too much of a detour. The site was smaller than expected, but the house had a lovely charm to it and we had fun exploring the tree lookout area. As we still had time to spare, we headed on the recommended walk found on the National Trust website from Northycote Farm to Moseley Old Hall and back, which offered an hour's gentle stroll through the woods. 


It was then time to head to Cadbury World. Once arrived, we headed straight into the attraction which took us through a number of areas including providing an insight into the origins of chocolate, films and demonstrations on chocolate making, a 4D film and a short ride. There were also opportunities to taste some chocolate and have a go at tempering. As part of the experience, we were provided with three chocolate bars at the start - a dairy milk, a caramel dairy milk and a wispa bar. Part way round, we were also provided with a small cup of chocolate buttons and offered some extra toppings to go with them. It turns out that we think these were meant to be meltable so that you could make yourself something to take away but the machine wasn't working. Either way, it was a great addition to the tour. We weren't really sure what to expect from our visit due to the attraction having changed a lot in the time since Nicole visited, but it definitely didn't disappoint and is somewhere we would happily return to. 





After we had been to all the areas of the attraction, we went to the gift shop and treated ourselves to some chocolate (of course!) and then took some time to visit the cafe. It turned out that, due to it being a weekday and quite quiet, the cafe shuts early and we were only about 10 minutes from missing out. Just a word of warning if you are going on a similar day to look ahead at the time it closes to plan ahead. We both opted for a freakshake, Shannon having the strawberry, white chocolate and jelly baby, and Nicole having the caramel freddo. Both were very tasty and well worth the money. 


It was then time for us to head to our AirBnB for the night. Sarah's place was located about 10 minutes from Cadbury world, and about 40 minutes from West Midlands Safari Park. It provided us everything we needed for our overnight stay, and somewhere to relax before a busy couple of days ahead. 

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