Our family has gone to a lot of the different National Trust trails, but we especially love Wimpole, which has tons of different walks throughout the year. When we heard that this was one of the National Trust sites that would have the Pokemon Trading Card Game Mega Evolution trail, we had to go. It’s a trail designed to highlight a bunch of select Pokemon Cards, along a winding path around the estate — and so as fans of the cards, we had to check it out.
When we arrived, we were handed a sheet of paper that had the outlines of Pokemon on the back, along with different questions that could be answered by looking at the cards. We then started the walk, which was a one-way path (meaning we needed to double back on ourselves) that had the cards not very far from each other. You could easily see the next while at the first. This trail was aimed at younger children, which was shown as each of the cards had a sort of side quest; jumping, holding poses, doing small math problems, that sort of thing.
We walked from one to another, which was easy enough, but it wasn’t as engaging as I expected. There wasn’t a stamp for the back of your paper, or stickers, or anything to mark off the ones you had seen or write down the answers. We didn’t get a pencil either, though a stamp seams to be what was missing, based on the back having those little outlines which would have been cool to cover with a stamp. I do feel that the Pokemon Trading Card Game Mega Evolution trail just could have been more.
After about a 30 minute walk, we got to the end which had a sign for a photo. This was cute! We then walked back past all of the cards and to the cafe building, where we could show them our paper and get a fun pack of Pokemon Chaos Rising cards – note these fun packs are just three cards, with no full arts. It was cute to have a little reward though!
I do wish there were some Pokemon statues, stamps for the back of the paper, and just more to do on this trail. The cards themselves were neat, but it feels very low-key, especially compared to other Pokemon events and seasonal trails at the National Trust. With that said, it is cute that younger children are able to earn a little pack of cards by being out in nature.
