This Easter bank holiday weekend is not the one any of us had planned when the year started, however it is here, and it is one that all of us, apart from the amazing keyworkers, will be spending indoors. So, to help you enjoy your four-day weekend to the max, we have compiled a list of fun things to do online from the safety of your own homes.
Visit a museum.
In the past we may have headed off for a day out this weekend to the big city to visit London’s Natural History Museum. The museum’s vast collection might be closed to the public right now, but you can still wander around the corridors and exhibits in this interactive online guide. And as a bonus, Dippy the dino, who is currently on tour and in Cardiff, still makes an appearance in the entrance hall. You wouldn’t have seen if you’d been allowed to be there physically, so that’s an Easter treat for you all.
There are similar tours of the British Museum, The National Portrait Gallery and the Vatican Museums in Rome.
Visit a farm.
Easter and spring and little lambs and maybe a farm visit, are all things some may associate with this bank holiday weekend but cannot do this year. We can however bring you “Lamb Cams” which are a thing now!
You can look at cute baby animals and their farm homes across the UK. Take your pick from –
Walby Farm Park, Cumbria
Marlfield Farm, on the border of Yorkshire and Lancashire
Folly Farm, Pembrokeshire
National Forest Adventure Farm, Staffordshire
Going to a zoo.
As with the farms, the UK zoos are also closed to the public right now. Again, have no fear, you can still virtually visit them!
Chester Zoo – Chester Zoo gave a live virtual tour on Friday 27 March to offer some animal-filled entertainment to all of us in isolation. The whole tour is still available to view on their Facebook page so you can still enjoy a day seeing all their animals on your own private keeper guided walk around, lucky you!
Edinburgh Zoo – Edinburgh Zoo has live video feeds for a number of its animal enclosures, including pandas, tigers, penguins and koalas. The live webcams are available via the Edinburgh Zoo website, however the zoo has warned that there may be some technical difficulties due to understandable extra traffic on its site. If you have any issues on their website you could also visit its YouTube channel or its Facebook page for other, pre-recorded animal vids.
Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens – Here you can take a peek inside the meerkat and penguin enclosures at this wildlife park.
Paignton Zoo and Animal Wildlife Park – The Paignton zoo has a 360 virtual tour complete with zoo noises, as well as numerous live webcams to enjoy on its website. You could have a virtual stroll around the beautiful zoo grounds in one browser window, and in another browser window flick to the corresponding webcam feed when you stumble onto that enclosure. It’ll be like you’re actually there (kind off). Their live feeds include flamingos, meerkats, and Sulawesi crested macaques.
Marwell Zoo – On offer at Marwell is access to the flamingo, lemur, giraffe and penguin enclosures via an array of live webcams.
Easter Egg Hunt! Roblox Style!
Roblox, the popular multiplayer online video game, has launched an Easter egg hunt just in time for the Easter weekend.
Roblox tweeted on the 7th April – “With over 40 fantastic eggs scattered across Roblox, it’ll take a daring team of agents to retrieve them all. Are you up to the challenge? Suit up in Egg Hunt 2020: Agents of E.G.G. from now through April 28: https://www.roblox.com/egghunt”
All players have been allocated an ‘Eggphone’ to help keep track of the eggs and to provide them with in-game information, and the Roblox website also provides some clues on where to find the first eggs. Happy hunting!
A more traditional Easter egg hunt.
Whilst looking for info to put in this article I found a whole array of static panoramic picture Easter egg hunts that people have created and uploaded here! Have a look through, find your favourite and away you go!
Take in a show.
Get dressed up in your finest and enjoy an evening of culture from the exclusive front row seats on your sofa! The National Theatre is streaming a free performance of a much-loved show every Thursday during this lockdown period, and the one for Easter bank holiday will be Jane Eyre, from 7pm on April 9 until April 16, and then Treasure Island until April 23.
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber will be streaming a production of one of his musicals on YouTube each week for us also. He’s aptly called his YouTube channel The Shows Must Go On! Each show will be available for a limited 48-hour period online every Friday from 7pm, with Jesus Christ Superstar, being the next on the list for the Easter weekend.
Fancy!
Escape room fun.
You can’t visit any Escape Room businesses directly, for the obvious reason that being locked in a room with numerous people goes against the social distancing thing! But you still want to have immersive fun with the fam this weekend? Well there are now some free online escape rooms for us to enjoy!
Escape From Home – they usually physically bring the escape room to you – but they very kindly have online rooms here for us to enjoy during lockdown. There is an Egyptian themed one and a Pirate themed one.
Pastel Games – Baby Yaga, a witchy fairy-tale style escape room game.
Kotorinosu – Mirror, literally a room you have to escape from. No story, just brain challenging fun.
Peters Township Public Library in McMurray, PA – Hogwarts Digital Escape Room – Harry Potter themed Digital Escape Room
Kongregate – SUBMACHINE 9: THE TEMPLE – Indiana Jones style temple escape room
The technology we have these days is amazing! Especially at a time like we’re having now. We’re still going places we couldn’t otherwise get to, seeing people we wouldn’t otherwise be able to see. We hope this list gives you some inspiration and boredom busting ideas for the upcoming Easter weekend. This is just the tip of the iceberg for online entertainment to, as our amazing virtual online community, across many media platforms, and across the UK and the globe, are putting on so much for us to do and see to help us all stay indoors. Book readings, virtual classes, fitness classes, children’s entertainment, online gigs. The online world is your oyster!
Whatever you decide to do over the next four days, stay safe, and keep smiling!
