CUMBRIAN attraction Rheged has gone back in time to the Jurassic period, welcoming the Dinosaur Encounter this summer. SAM SHARP visited with her family to find out more

WE visited Rheged as a family, specifically to see the touring Dinosaur Encounter exhibition from The Natural History Museum in London.

With two boys, aged five and eight, we thought it would be the perfect day out to entertain them during the summer holidays.

A trip to this exhibition was easily made into a full day out with the extra activities around the Rheged Centre. Rheged runs set timings throughout the day to visit the exhibition and booking is advisable as the exhibition has been a sell-out since opening, with over 10,000 visitors in the first three weeks.

There are two options to choose from - the exhibition itself or the exhibition followed by a 40-minute showing of the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Planet. We opted for the exhibition only so we could spend time in the centre's shops, indoor and outdoor play areas, cafes and miniature golf course.

The exhibition itself is located in the top floor gallery but on the way up to the gallery in the main foyer you are greeted by an enormous animatronic model of a T-Rex. The model is very life like and the children had to come to terms with the fact it wasn't actually real and wasn't going to eat them!

When reaching the gallery there were 10 more intricately detailed dinosaur models with movement and sound effects, each very realistic.

The exhibition itself is small but very impressive. Built by Rheged, it provides a real life interactive museum experience. Information built around the displays of dinosaurs creates an interactive, educational experience for both adults and children. It's a must to take in all the information otherwise your visit could quite easily be over in a short time.

As you move about, children can take part in a quiz (more aimed at age seven and above), crayon rubbings of fossil replicas, Lego building and not forgetting being able to measure the size of your foot against a T-Rex footprint. This kept the boys well entertained.

There are also many replicas of fossils from The Natural History Museum Archives, which give you an insight into what to expect if visiting London.

Overall this is a fantastic day out and Rheged have done themselves proud to bring such an outstanding feature to Cumbria. We will definitely be back over the summer to visit some of the family shows. Professor Pumpernickel's mind-bending science show and The Spy Academy both sound great.

The Dinosaur Encounter runs until September 3, 2017.