Robin Hill Park

Robin Hill is so much more than just another Festival site. 

Amongst the beautiful natural woodland and lakes there are winding paths with surprises around every corner and loads of rides for kids of all ages to play on!

In fact Robin Hill has the 3 biggest rides on the Island. Take your pick from the 400m Toboggan Run through the trees, the park's very own Time Machine (a 28 seat motion platform cinema that takes you forwards and backwards in time) and Colossus (a 42 seater swinging pirate ship).

That's far from all though, the park also boasts a Maze for you to get lost in, Rabbit Run underground tunnels for you to crawl through, a Miniature Village (mind your head at the Duck Inn!), an ancient Roman Villa, a Troll Kissing Seat, a Gipsy Trailer Park and a Tree Top Trail! There's more still... but you're just gonna have to find those yourself when you get there (that's part of the fun!)

ps... did we mention that they've got peacocks roaming freely around?!

Robin Hill Adventure Park & Gardens is part of the Vectis Ventures Ltd group which also owns Blackgang Chine near Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Vectis Ventures Ltd is owned by the Dabell family and has operated in the tourism & leisure sector on the Island since the mid 1800’s.
The company is one of the Island’s longest standing, largest and most successful tourism businesses to date, employing in excess of 120 staff in a full time, part time or seasonal positions across a trading year.
The company’s two headline brands are some of the most iconic and recognisable on the Isle of Wight and are proud to be considered as flagship business that help form the identity of the Island to a national and international audience.
Robin Hill was purchased by Vectis Ventures Ltd in 1993/4 and is still growing successfully to meet the demands of the ever changing tourism opportunities that exist on the Island. Robin Hill was nominated for and won the 2008/9 I.W Chamber of Commerce “Tourism & Leisure Business Awards for Excellence” and then went on to win the much coveted title of Island Business of the Year 2008/9 on behalf of the company.
Robin Hill is striving to meet the green and environmental challenges of operating in the 21st Century and has been awarded a bronze in the Green Island Awards scheme. We encourage all our staff & visitors to think and behave responsibly towards the beautiful environment that we operate in.

www.robin-hill.com
view the video at  http://www.robin-hill.com/index.php 

Sigur Ros

!!!

Reviews

I have read various reviews from a mixture of sources to gather non-biased opinions of Bestival

http://www.supmag.com/2008/yurts-colostomy-bags-and-commitment-a-tale-from-the-isle-of-wight/

Green Issues

Bestival was a very proud recipient of an 'Outstanding' Greener Festival Award in 2009, one of only 13 festivals worldwide to achieve this top level award. This year we are building on this still further to make Bestival an even greener and more environmentally friendly event.

The Bestival Green Team, our troupe of top hat sporting eco-minded volunteers, return this year to patrol the site, helping you to keep it green and tidy. They will be handing out recycling bags for you to use in the campsites and free cigarette butt bins. Plus they'll be helping 10:10 at their tent and across the site signing you up to their brilliant carbon reduction campaign and they will be conducting a travel survey as part of the measures we have put in place to analyse, report and act on our greenhouse gas emissions.

We do need your help though … please do your bit to Keep Bestival Tidy by following these simple rules...

1. Use Public Transport or Car Share
 The greatest negative environmental impact of any festival is caused by transport, mostly by cars. In fact approximately 90% of a festival's carbon footprint is caused by vehicle travel to and from the festival. It's really very easy to get to Bestival by public transport (check the rest of this 'Practical Info' section of our website for more info) and it will also be much cheaper for you!

 If you must come by car though, please fill it up with people! Even if you only have one space free in your car, please head over to the Bestival car sharing page at www.liftshare.com/event/20 and get yourselves signed up. In 2008 the people who used our Liftshare service saved 368,778 miles of car travel, 113 tonnes of CO2, 37,588 trees and £36,878 of their own money. That sounds pretty good but we want to do much much better than that in 2009! With your help.

2. Minimise Packaging
Please unpack all unnecessary cardboard and plastic around crates of beer / airbeds / tents before you leave home and avoid bringing plastic carrier bags with you.

3. No Glass
Absolutely NO GLASS is allowed on site. Please decant wine / vodka etc into plastic bottles or it will be confiscated at the gate. No exceptions.

4. Pick up your own litter
Sounds simple, and it really is. When you and your mates move on from wherever you’ve been on site please pick up all your beer cups, water bottles, food containers, fag butts etc and drop them in one of the many recycling points nearby.

In the campsites, please keep the area around your tent tidy and use the recycling bags provided.

5. Recycle
Virtually all waste at Bestival will be recycled. There will be 3 different bin types on site for public use - Cans, Plastic Bottles and All Other Waste. The first two are self-explanatory; the latter is where you should drop all other waste. This will go to an innovative gasification plant on the island which converts 'Waste To Energy' which, in turn, powers many homes on the island. Gasification is a two stage thermal treatment process known as Advanced Conversion Technology (ACT) and represents one of  the most up to date forms of waste treatment available.

There will be a similar bin system in the campsites and you will also be given ‘Mixed Recyclables’ waste sacks for use in and around your tents. Please take these to the Recycling Point pens in each campsite when full.

We will also be recycling glass, gaper, wood, metal and cooking oil used by our production and the traders.

 6. Use the compostable loos
This year we have even more composting loos - these are cleaner, less stinky and much much greener so please use them wherever possible.

And please don’t wee or poo in or near the lakes or woods (or, indeed anywhere other than the loos) as the local wildlife really don‘t like it! And nor do the nice Robin Hill staff who get the really grim job of having to clear it all up once we've left.

7. Use a free Cigarette Butt Bin
Every single fag butt has to be picked up at the end of the weekend. So please grab yourself a free butt bin from The Green Team and use it. These will be small film canisters that you can keep in your pocket and empty at the bins when they are full. Simple.

8. Please don’t waste water
There will be standpipes throughout the site and showers in the campsites. Please use the water to drink/wash but please don’t waste it by leaving taps/showers running.

9. Take your tent home with you
Please don't leave your tents (or gazebos, air matresses, sleeping bags etc) behind at the end of the weekend. They will simply become large pieces of litter that cannot be recycled.

A local scout group will be onsite to salvage some of the abandoned tents but we would much prefer it if you just took yours home with you and re-used it next year.

The Selby Times

The history of the old park plantation

arkston Ash Beekeepers Association where  invited to set up this apiary in 2008 by brothers Craig  and  Martin Blakey within their “Wild Life Habitat Protection Trust” at the Old park Plantation  a couple of miles south of Church Fenton.                     
 

      The infrastructure for the establishment of the apiary was financed by the Wildlife Protection Trust.

 

      Barkston Ash Beekeepers Association is a long established association, based at Church Fenton, near Tadcaster and the project was in response to the need to promote beekeeping in the area of Yorkshire between Leeds and York. The area is mainly rural but there are fewer beekeepers in the area than might be expected. Recent publicity in the media has highlighted the importance of bees in the environment to pollinate both crops and native flora. The introduction of the varroa mite into the UK in 1992 has resulted in the demise of feral honey bee colonies and therefore the health of the honey bee population is all the more dependent upon beekeepers.

   The apiary will has the following objectives

1. Training new beekeepers
2. Queen rearing and producing nuclei
3. Sharing and developing beekeeping expertise
4. Demonstrations of beekeeping to the public.

     A Committee was set up to over see the apiary. Its members are Andy Dykes, John Fuller and Greg Sharp.
 

      The apiary is situated on the south side of Old Park Plantation over looking arable land. It is   sheltered to the east, west and north, so promises to be a good site.
 

      Work started clearing the site on Saturday 1^st November 2008, and other Saturdays throughout the winter. Undergrowth had to be cut away, a high hawthorn hedge was reduced in size, trees in the way where pulled out by management using a JCB.  Eventually we had a clear area and concrete slabs laid to put stillages on.

      Robin Tomlinson supplied the timber and John Whitaker used his wood working skill to make the stillages.
 

      Our biggest problem was the road leading from the car park to the apiary site.  It had been dug out for the laying of lime stone and eventually macadam.  Once the top soil had been removed it exposed clay. When this became wet it was very difficult to walk on and we slithered all aver the place.  Wheel barrows could not be pushed and had to be towed.
 

      Those giving up their time to clear the site – apart from the Committee where:- Brian Shipley, John Whitaker, Liz Lowe plus her husband and Julia Wharrie.
 

      I went to Thorne’s and purchased national brood boxes, deep frames and supers. Shallow frames I got from National Bee Supplies of Exeter.

      John Whitaker made mesh floors and clown boards for the hives.

      John Bowes of York Beekeepers came up trumps, making us a branding iron to mark our wood work. Greg Sharp and I spent a cold evening branding wood work (fortified with a bottle of my prize winning mead).

      Brothers Craig and Mark Blakey who are behind the scheme where most generous, supplying all we asked for. They put tall posts on three side of the site and then covered them in mesh so that our bees and the public never meet.
 

      I donated one of my colonies on 14 × 12 frames and a Buckfast queen.  A demonstration was given to new beekeepers on doing a shook swarm to get the bees off my deep frames and onto 8½" frames.  On the same afternoon. John Whitaker - who had brought one of his hives to make the site look more occupied – demonstrated a Bailey Comb Change.
 

      The site then soon filled up as the 2009 beginners obtained their own bees.
 

      Two supers of honey had been harvested by the end of June and sold – putting some money back into our coffers to make up for the start up outlay.

      Extracting the honey was an ideal time to demonstrate to our new beekeepers how to uncap frames, spin the honey out and run it into tubs.

      Further demonstrations where given to beginners on treating with Apiguard to reduce varroa infestation and again in early January 2010 with oxalic acid.

My line-up

Hot Chip, The XX, LCD Soundsystem, Fever Ray, Richie Hawtin, Jonsi (Sigur Ros), Delphic, Simian Mobile Disco, Ellie Goulding, Dan le Sac Vs Scrubius Pip, Mumford and Sons, Wild Beasts, Beardyman, Hurts, Japanese Popstars, Aeroplane, Everything Everything, Magda, New Young Pony Club, Tensnake, Chic, Flaming lips, Caribou, Four Tet, Chrome Hoof, Roxy Music, Erol Alkan, Disco Bloodbath

this is why bestival is good to me! 
it allows me to see a whole list of bands that i love, just looking at the line up again has made me giddy.