Picture leafy woodlands dripping with catkins, arranged on a bed of bluebells and drizzled with spring water. Imagine new-season lamb, served up on a lush hillside, garnished with daffodils, and pink clouds of fragrant cherry blossom lovingly sprinkled with twittering songbirds.

Dream of happy days spent exploring the green lanes of Great Britain, the nation that does the new season better than anywhere else on earth. These aren’t just any spring breaks. These are Sunday Times spring breaks.

And, because this year’s Easter hols are spread over a remarkably long period – falling somewhere between March 20 and April 16, depending on the whim of your local education authority – there’s still plenty of availability. So, here’s an Easter bonnet brimming with Britain’s best spring family forays: they’re the season’s finest, hand-picked for you.

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BACKGROUND

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Highlands

Slip on your sandals and whack on a Joan Baez CD – there’s no quicker way to fast-track your family back 40 years than at the wheel of a camper van, bone-white beaches to your left, Highland summits to your right. You can knock off Skye, Cape Wrath and John O’Groats in less than a week, with Scotland at its presummer midgeless best.

Forget the hippie bus, though – you want something that won’t break down, with plenty of traction for Forestry Commission tracks and access to secluded coves. Based near Stirling, Campers Scotland (01259 759118, www.campers-scotland.com ), run by devotees fair bursting with camp-site tips, has superb 4WD Mazda Bongos, sleeping six, for £405 per week, including awning, cooker, utensils and fridge; bike hire costs £30 per week, canoes £120. Edinburgh or Glasgow airport drop-offs cost £35.

CRUISE THE CANALS

Denbighshire

Agent for more than 50 boatyards throughout Europe, Canal Holidays (01756 693607, www.canalholidays.com ) has the widest range of canal breaks in the UK. Pootling along at a maximum 4mph – canal boating’s catch line is “the fastest way to slow down” – and stopping at riverside pubs for lunch, you could pick anywhere and have a great family holiday.

But a gentle week on the Llangollen canal (from £775 in a four-star Arundel or Ashford narrow boat, sleeping four), negotiating the 120ft-high Pontcysyllte aqueduct, 42 locks and the 1,377ft Chirk tunnel, will go down in the family annals as an all-time favourite.

KEEP ’EM BUSY

Northumberland

With 35 UK coastal locations and a choice of half-board or self-catering accommodation in caravans, apartments, chalets and even yurts, Haven Holidays (0871 230 1930, www.havenholidays.com ) is a cut-price Center Parcs – with all the good bits left in.

Because what they haven’t cut down on is the all-you-can-eat buffet of ways to exhaust your children: from football to fencing, abseiling to indoor aqua parks, there’s a huge choice of activities for young and old, as well as kids’ clubs (for ages 1-16), evening entertainments and spas. Prices vary from park to park, with reductions of up to 20% over the Easter holidays – three nights in a standard caravan (sleeping four) at Rockley Park, overlooking Poole Harbour, start at £169; and seven nights at Haggerston Castle Park, in Northumberland start at £299. Dogs are welcome for £40 per week.

MUCK IN ON THE FARM

North Devon

You can barely move in Devon for all the lambs craning to be cuddled at Easter, but Torridge House Farm Cottages (01805 622542, www.torridgehouse.co.uk ), in Little Torrington, is no ordinary petting farm. An idyllic, 10-acre smallholding, eight miles inland from Bideford, it has 10 barn conversions, each with log stove or open fireplace, where guests become fully fledged farm helpers, feeding the lambs up to four times daily, while also mucking out and looking after ducks, pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs and mice. Prices in March and April start at £417 for seven nights, self-catering, in a four-person cottage, rising to £762 for one sleeping eight. Baby-sitting costs £6.50 per hour.

TAKE A FIELD TRIP

Yorkshire

With 17 centres around the UK and Ireland, the Field Studies Council (0845 345 4071, www.field-studies-council.org ) is a shrine to self-improvement, but it has seven three- to sevennight family courses this Easter that actually give education a fun name.

A few stand out – including Highland Adventure, in the Cairngorms (March 21-28), and Bushcraft, in Dorking, Surrey (April 11-13) – but the pick of an improbably enticing bunch is Wild Days in the Dales (March 21-25; adults £266, children £196, full-board), at the National Trust’s Malham Tarn, where children (ages 8-12) and parents will go caving and geocaching as they explore the natural history of the Yorkshire Dales.

PADDLE DOWNSTREAM

Herefordshire

You’ll need a good weather forecast for this one, as the Wye in a spring wind can make for chilly paddling – but take it easy and children as young as eight will have the time of their tiny lives. In Hay-on-Wye, Paddles and Pedals (01497 820604, www.paddlesandpedals.co.uk ) has three-person open canoes for £40 per day – families with two children need a second canoe or kayak (£20). Return transfers are free.

From Hay, a typical lazy four-day paddle downriver – past banks of daffodils and gambolling lambs, camping in designated riverbank orchards – takes in the National Trust’s Weir Gardens, Hereford Cathedral, lunch at the riverside Saracen’s Head, in Ross-on-Wye, and at journey’s end, the Jubilee Gardens funfair at Symonds Yat. Those Swallows and Amazons never had it so good.

STAY IN A LIGHTHOUSE

Norfolk

I’ve stayed in a lighthouse or two – take it from me, it’s not for nothing that, in films, lighthouse-keepers always wear Arran jumpers. Draughty and damp, lighthouses are usually a shrine to Victorian endurance. Not so the 30 converted keepers’ cottages from Rural Retreats (01386 701177, www.ruralretreats.co.uk ): perched dramatically round the UK, from Alderney to Whitby Bay, they have soft, plump furnishings that would make the early keepers choke on their pipes. Just a 10-minute stroll along the coastal path from Cromer pier, Valonia, which sleeps six, has steps to a sandy beach, fish-and-chip suppers on tap and superb coastal walks on the doorstep. Available from March 25, it costs £984 per week.

RIDE THE TRAILS

Powys

Gallop greenhorns should look away now – with six hours in the saddle daily, and canters through oak woods and along mountain paths, this is an five-day, 80-mile trail ride for experienced riders only. There’s no age limit as such – nine-year-olds have managed it in the past – but Myfanwy Mitchell, of Ellesmere Riding Centre, says parents should call first to discuss any doubts over their gymkhana junkie’s abilities.

Riding through the Black Mountains on a circular loop from Llangorse Lake, you’ll stay in farmhouses along the way, helping as much or as little as you like with grooming, feeding and tacking. There are no set departures, and six nights cost £934pp, full-board. Call Mitchell on 0771 110 0419 or visit www.wales-riding.co.uk .

RIDE THE WAVES

Cornwall

Based on Watergate Bay – a two-mile stretch of sand so soap-star golden, it’s the setting for ITV’s Echo Beach – Extreme Academy runs courses in surfing, kitesurfing, wave-skiing, landboarding and being dragged along beach by power kite (aka traction kiting). Half-day courses start at £25.

At the Watergate Bay hotel (01637 860543, www.watergatebay.co.uk ), which runs the Extreme Academy, six nights in the Coach House start at £808, B&B, for a family of four, including kids’ clubs, PlayStations and evening videos. Classic Cottages (01326 555555, www.classic.co.uk ), with more than 600 cottages in the West Country, still has cottages close to Watergate Bay, including two-bedroom Anneth Lowen, 10 minutes away; seven nights start at £444.

A FAMILY HOTEL STAY

Suffolk

In case that Christmas bonus is still burning a hole, von Essen Hotels (01761 240121, www.vonessenhotels.co.uk ) has six reassuringly expensive yet weirdly welcoming hotels where kids are gods. Bikes, pools, trampolines, pools, early dinners for the littlies, supervised clubs (for children aged up to 7) and unsupervised play zones offering table tennis, PlayStations and DVDs – what cash-rich, imagination-overdrawn parent could ask for more?

The family-friendly hotels are in Cornwall, Dorset, Wiltshire, Worcestershire and Suffolk, where the Ickworth (01284 735350), in 1,800 acres of bikeable, treasure-hunt-tastic parkland near Bury St Edmunds, has doubles from £320 per night, full-board; under12s sharing stay free.

A FAMILY ACTION BREAK

Surrey

While most kids’ camps relieve you of your brood, PGL (0870 050 7507, www.pgl.co.uk ) – which offers late-availability discounts of up to 30% at its 17 residential camps in the UK, France and Austria – has family holidays where mum and dad get grubby, too, climbing and kayaking, cycling and zip-wiring with their kids.

There is availability at all camps for March and April: at Marchants Hill, on the North Downs, overlooking the Devil’s Punch Bowl, two nights start at £125pp (ages 2-5 £79, ages 6 and up £115), including meals and activities, with four nights from £210pp (£115/£189).

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