The school holidays are upon us again and for parents it presents the dilemma of how to amuse your children for seven long weeks.

Entertaining a range of ages is always difficult, but you can be assured of smiling faces at the end of a day out at Heads of Ayr Farm Park.

Situated just outside Ayr, at Alloway, on the Dunure Road, the park has the ideal location as it sits next to both the shore and to Craig Tara holiday village, which provides the park with a good percentage of its summer visitors.

Run by Craig and Edna Rankin and their family and a dedicated staff, they are all celebrating topping the Farm Attraction of the Year Award in the UK, presented by the National Farm Attraction Network, so they are obviously doing something right.

In fact, have a wander around the farm park, you will find that they do lots of things right – which explains the 130,000 visitors who come to the park through the seven months of the year that it is open to the public.

Craig and Edna are, as the park’s name suggests, farmers who moved to the present site in 1990 to farm there from their previous farm in Ochiltree, with the intention of opening a caravan park on the surrounding ground.

Planning permission didn’t go their way and, as they had always welcomed visitors from the neighbouring holiday village who were interested in seeing their peacocks and Shetland ponies, they took on a few of the more exotic animals which attracted more visitors, and the farm park presented itself as a business venture.

Craig says: “We didn’t just appear as this huge attraction, it has taken 17 years of hard work to get to this stage. We have added something every year to keep our regular visitors coming back.

“Initially, it was just the animals that we had, and then we would add a play park, then invest again and add more attractions, and, as the years have gone on, we have expanded and re-invested in order to make a day out at the park as exciting as it can be.”

Edna adds: “In the early days, it was myself and Craig who did all the work and gradually we have taken on more staff. We are now in a privileged position of having an amazing management team, one or two of them having come through courses in Auchencruive, who have taken the park forward with their amazing ideas and enthusiasm.”

Heads of Ayr tries to cater for the unpredictable Scottish weather, by providing many indoor attractions so that they don’t suffer from having a park full of staff, but no visitors. The indoor soft play areas, pet byre, guinea pig village, cafe, and shop etc can easily cater for 500 people indoors at any one time.

The entire park now has the facilities to fit 2500 visitors per day into its 15-acre site. Outwith the summer holidays, the weekends are busiest, but the Rankins encourage mothers and toddlers to visit the indoor play barn during the week, which keeps the park busy.

The animals benefit from excellent husbandry, which you would expect from former farmers and they have had many comments from visitors praising the obvious health of the animals, and the cleanliness of both the enclosures and around the park in general.

Craig says: “The animals have always been a draw for visitors, as we have nearly 50 different species to look at, stroke and feed. Some of them came with us from our old farm, and we really enjoy watching the kids interacting with the animals.

“We welcome school and nursery trips, and by the end of the day there is always the inevitable tantrums when parents are trying to get them to go home.”

Outdoors, apart from the huge amount of animals spread throughout the park, there are giant sand pits, zip slides, a variety of hairy rides and slides which will have their little hearts racing. Then, there are kids and adults quad bike tracks, trampolines, jumping pillows and picnic areas, and this year’s new attraction are the bumper boats – circular boats in a custom-built pool which allows riders to bash into each other quite safely.

When everyone eventually tires themselves out, there is a cafe to recharge the batteries, and a snack bar alongside the indoor play area, which allows adults to relax as well.

Edna adds: “It is important to parents that they know that their kids are safe within the park. When we were building up the park over the years, our kids were also young and so, of course, we made the park totally enclosed so that no little adventurers can wander off. It gives the mums and dads the chance to relax in the park, which is rare on a day out, and we feel that is one of the reasons that the park is such a hit with families.”

The park closes in October, which is when the next year’s improvements are made, animal enclosure maintenance is carried out and any new attractions are installed.

For next year the team are thinking about creating a wallaby walk way, which will allow visitors to stroll through the middle of the wallaby enclosure giving closer contact with the animals. And there are plans to convert another building to house some more indoor facilities which will allow the park to run more efficiently in wet or cold weather.

The farm park holds a zoo licence and they are passionate about helping conserve some of the rarer animals on the park, which means swapping animals with zoos and safari parks to help with breeding programmes.

As the footfall increases year on year, so have the car parking facilities and the park can offer free parking for 600 plus visitors.

But, go early, because it will take all day to get around and have a go at everything on offer.

n For more information go to:www.headsofayrfarmpark.co.uk