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Kate Middleton at forest school© Getty Images

Princess Kate's unexpected new hobby - and her children are impressed

The Princess of Wales shared her new outdoor pursuit during a visit to Pontypridd

Danielle Stacey
Online Royal CorrespondentLondon
February 27, 2025
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The Princess of Wales often speaks about her love for the great outdoors, and during a visit to Pontypridd in south Wales on Wednesday, she shared the new skill she's learning.

Prince William and Kate were given a tour of the Meadow Street Community Garden and Woodland to hear about the site's impact and how volunteers worked to restore it in the wake of the floods, which affected the area in 2024.

As the Princess chatted too young volunteers, she revealed that she is learning to forage in Norfolk, with her three children, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six, left impressed by a "huge" puffball mushroom she had found near their home.

"The children thought it was fascinating," she said.

Foraging involves searching for and collecting edible plants, fruits, nuts, seeds and fungi from the outdoors.

No doubt Kate has also picked up some tips from her father-in-law, the King, who embarked on a mushroom foraging trip alone in August 2011.

William and Kate visit Meadow Street Community Garden and Woodland in Pontypridd© Getty
William and Kate visited Meadow Street Community Garden and Woodland in Pontypridd

It was the hobby that Charles also turned to on the day of his mother Queen Elizabeth II's death on 8 September 2022.

He learned that his mother had passed as he returned to Balmoral after foraging for mushrooms on his nearby Birkhall estate.

The Princess of Wales, who has long spoken about the benefits of being in nature, shares a love of outdoor pursuits with her husband and their children.

On X, the couple's cover photo is a gorgouse image of William and Kate with their three children
On X, the couple's cover photo is a gorgouse image of William and Kate with their three children

Back in 2020, Kate appeared on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast and when host Giovanna Fletcher prompted the then Duchess of Cambridge to complete the sentence, "I'm happy when…," she replied: "I'm with my family outside in the countryside and we're all filthy dirty.

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And in the ITV documentary, Prince William: A Planet For Us All, the future King said of his eldest son George: "Seeing my children, seeing the passion in their eyes and the love for being outdoors… They find a bug or they love watching how bees are forming the honey.

"George particularly, if he's not outdoors he's quite like a caged animal. He needs to get outside."

Kate was pictured standing next to a tree and captured playing in the woodland and the beach in Norfolk, as she shared updates about her cancer treatments last year.

Kate Middleton standing next to tree© Matt Porteous
Princess Kate released this image ahead of her appearance at Trooping

And just a couple of weeks after she announced she was in remission from the disease, Kensington Palace posted a powerful snap of the Princess taken by her youngest son, Louis, which showed Kate standing with her arms outstretched in a wintery forest scene.

Kate Middleton pictured in frosty woodland for World Cancer Day © Instagram
Princess Kate pictured in frosty woodland for World Cancer Day

"Don't forget to nurture all that which lies beyond the disease," Kate wrote in the caption to mark World Cancer Day.

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