Maisdoorhof and pumpkin carving - Dongen

‘t fazantje Dongen, Brabant

http://www.fazantje-dongen.nl/

We raced from school to Dongen, around 25 minutes away on the motorway. 

We had an invite to come with some friends to find our way through a corn maze and to also carve some pumkins. Nor I or the children had ever gone through a real maze nor had we ever carved pumkins. I thought I would never do this on my own, so I jumped at the chance to go. It sounded like a perfect Autumn afternoon out.

The owners do not speak very good Dutch so you will have to rely on your Dutch. They were however friendly and welcoming. There aren't any snacks or drinks on site so bring some nibbles with you.

 The kids were given a list of letters that they had to find which made up a sentance in Dutch. They also had to look out for TV characters along the way. My kids are aged nearly 8, 6 and 3.5. They had a fantastic time racing around the maze and really tried to get as many letters as possible. Once they had found almost all the letters and could find no more, we found our way out of the maze. There are no markers to help you make your way out but the kids seemed to know exactly where they were going! 

After that we were able to pick 3 small pumkins and the lady told us how to get started. Getting the top of is tricky as the knives we were given had no grooves in them. However I did it for the kids and they then scooped out in the inside with a large spoon. Even the 3 year old managed quite a bit. We were then showed some ideas for carving - two of my kids wanted scary faces and the little one wanted windows and a door. To my amazement, since I had never done it before - the faces and windows looked good. I couldn't wait to get them on!

We paid 2 euros per child for the maze and 5 euros for the pumpkin. They also had a huge selection of 'display'pumkins - those that you can put with the scary ones to make a nice display for the Autumn. 

After bath and just before bedtime we let the kids light their pumkin candles and they were amazed at how different they looked shining in the darkness. Well worth the drive and well worth the effort. I now feel that I could do this myself at home!