The T-rex sculptures return. And this time, they’re bringing a few prehistoric friends.
A free, family-friendly sculpture trail of prehistoric proportions is stomping onto the streets of Norwich and Norfolk between Monday 27 June and Saturday 10 September 2022.
GoGoDiscover features 79 individually designed sculptures comprising 55 T.rex and 24 Steppe Mammoths, each decorated by artists from across the country.
The T.rex sculptures will be located around Norwich city centre, with the cretaceous creatures set to appear at popular sites including Chantry Place, Norwich Cathedral, The Forum, Castle Quarter, Carrow Road and Jarrold.
Joining them is a humongous herd of 24 Steppe Mammoths, which will appear outwards from the city centre in towns and tourist hotspots such as King’s Lynn, Holt, Cromer Pier, Holkham, the Norfolk Broads, Hemsby and Pensthorpe.
GoGoDiscover is an expansion of last year’s fantastic 21-strong dinosaur trail, which accompanied the arrival of the Natural History Museum’s legendary Dippy the Diplodocus to Norwich.
This year, the prehistoric posse has been expanded with 58 new sculptures including Steppe Mammoths, which are particularly pertinent to Norfolk since the oldest and largest fossilised mammoth skeleton ever found in the UK was discovered at West Runton, along north Norfolk’s Deep History Coast.
GoGoDiscover is delivered by East Anglian charity Break, in partnership with Wild in Art. The presenting partners for the project are Norwich BID, Chantry Place and ROARR! Dinosaur Adventure.
The project is hoped to raise valuable funds for Break, which makes life better for children and young people who are on the edge of care, in care and leaving care.
All support of GoGoDiscover helps to stamp out the mammoth expectations faced by young adults leaving the care system.
While the trail is free for anyone to join, there are a range of opportunities to help raise funds for Break:
- Trailgoers wanting to locate and identify all 79 of the prehistoric visitors can download the new GoGoDiscover app (£1.99) from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store;
- Pick up a GoGoDiscover trail map (suggested donation £1) from a variety of trail map hubs including The Forum, The Royal Arcade, Jarrold and Break retail shops across the county;
- Join the sponsored Mammoth Hike and Beach Clean from Holt to Cromer (Sunday 3 July 2022). This 13 mile walk ends with a litter pick on the 1.5mile stretch from West Runton to Cromer. This route takes in three of the trail mammoths;
- Get sponsored to run, jog or walk the trail with Take on the Trail over the 11 weeks the trail is live;
- Buy a raffle ticket (£5/ticket) to be in with a chance to win your own medium sized T.rex! Available from https://break-charity.org/win-breakasaurus-rex/
- Pick up the collector’s sticker-book and associated stickers, in partnership with Archant and Eastern Daily Press;
- Browse the range of GoGoDiscover merchandise – available from the ROARR! Dinosaur Adventure shop;
- Bid for your own dinosaur at the GoGoDiscover auction on 28 September 2022. Successful bidders get to take their chosen dinosaur home after the trail has finished!
Enriching GoGoDiscover is the Learning & Community Programme, in partnership with Dipple & Conway Opticians, which sets to engage over 12,000 local school children and young people. The Learning and Community Programme sees a further 100 mini ‘Breakasaurus’ T.rex sculptures, which have been decorated by Norfolk schools and community groups, located around Norwich. Discover the locations of all Breakasaurus sculptures via the app or by downloading a map from break-charity.org/gogodiscover once the trail is live.
Pete Marron, GoGo Project Manager comments: “The ferocious T.rex and mysterious mammoth have captivated children’s imaginations for years, which is why we’re so excited to bring this prehistoric squad of sculptures to Norfolk this summer.
“We hope that by delivering a fun, family day out across the county we can capture the imaginations of dinosaur hunters and mammoth explorers of all ages; while at the same time raising much-needed funds to make life better for young adults leaving care.”
We thoroughly enjoyed Norwich last Summer while doing the GoGoDiscover T-Rex trail around the city.
It took us 3.5 hours to locate all 21 of last year’s sculptures (including a coffee and scone stop, toilet stops, leisurely riverside dawdling and a browse around the top floor of Jarrold) and we covered just over 6 miles (I mapped our route on my watch). Not a bad mornings work 😄
It was lovely to see so many other people out doing the trail too – all different ages, some with kids, some without.
We can’t wait to get on the trail again and join the prehistoric party this Summer!
This year’s prehistoric trail will run from Monday 27th June until Saturday 10th September 2022. For all the details, check out the Break website, or keep a beady Dino eye on social media.
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