What?: Coronavirus is weird. Like literally someone in China ate a bat last winter and six months later we’re driving to Enfield to play jumped-up crazy golf. I’m not a golf fan ordinarily (I mean is anyone really?) but I do love me a bit of crazy golf, particularly when it includes bridges and water features and giant sculptural jungle animals dotted around the place. Babu did the Amazon course with Adam a couple of weeks beforehand and enjoyed it so much she asked if we could revisit as a family, which I was all for despite being slightly nervous about taking the 16-month-old disaster to a golf course filled with lakes and waterfalls. Actually though, although the Amazon course looked kind of cooler, Babu was keen to try the largely water-free Congo course on this occasion, which made for a much less terrifying day out, even if Roro did still basically trip over EVERYTHING.
Ok so Corona-wise this place seems pretty on it, with all the putters and balls being disinfected before they hand them out, loads of antibac gel on site and copious social-distancing reminders, which are pretty easy to adhere to given that you’re all outside and you’re not going to want to share your hole with a complete stranger anyway (lol). So anyway, there are 18 holes per course and, despite my concerns that this might not be that under-fives friendly, Babu was actually pretty good and Roro was more than happy to bumble around doing her own thing (we didn’t bother splashing out on a putter for her, although I almost wish we had since she kept nicking everyone else’s). Actually I’m calling just managing not to lose her a win in itself, though next time we definitely need to make sure she’s had a nap before we arrive since was pretty angry and knackered by the end.
The course itself is fun and varied, although I think I was imagining it to look more like that episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Homer enter a miniature golf tournament and there are dinosaurs and windmills and Abraham Lincoln, and it didn’t. But hey, it was still cool for something we found next to the M25. My one massive annoyance was that there were a couple of guys behind us who kept completing their hole really quickly and then standing waiting for us to take 57 goes each to get our balls in. I got really annoyed and was all “can’t they just do a different hole and come back?” but Adam insisted you have to do it in order and that’s just THE RULES OF GOLF (I actually just looked at the rules on their site and apparently you’re only allowed six shots each per hole, which is just insanity). Anyway, we let them go ahead of us and it was pretty chilled in the end, aside from Adam getting irritated by us all being shit at golf. So yeah, a pretty decent family activity all in all. I still want a theme that’s cooler than just ‘the jungle’ though.
Where and When?: Jungle Falls is open 9am-7pm every day and can be found in Trent Park Golf Club on Bramley Road, N14 4UW. There’s a large on-site car park and Oakwood tube is a four-minute walk away.
Best Bits: The staff were great, hygiene was good and the course looked really cool.
Worst Bits: There did seem to be quite a lot of people there and I got proper stressed when people were waiting behind us, but that was mostly due to my own issues about my complete lack of skill.
Cost: The prices look different on the website, but it was just under £25 for two adults and a four year old (Ro went free because she wasn’t really playing).
Would We Come Back?: Yes and I’d happily try other adventure golf courses too.
Babu and Daddy meet the big gorilla post-putt at Jungle Falls Adventure Golf, Oakwood.
bablands.com 