We ummed and arred about driving this far, but it was so worth it. We even managed to get there fairly uneventfully for us. Didn't get lost or break down.
Drusillas is perfect if your children are under 12 I think. Huge amounts of things for them and adults to explore and interact with. The zoo is very cleverly laid out so that visitors are channeled through the exhibits towards the play areas and cafes at the end.
Animal Spotting books were handed out, and the idea was as you saw each animal you found the corresponding stamping station and stamped your book with a big red tick. The last thing in the book was Thomas the Tank Engine and you got a sticker for that once you'd had a ride.
And that's what I forgot to mention as probably the main attraction of the zoo for its younger visitors - a passenger sized Thomas the Tank Engine along with Annie and Clarabelle his carriages (plus one more carriage) Much to Alex's delight the Fat Controller was there to personally oversee the loading and unloading of passengers.The animals at the zoo are mainly small mammals, farm animals and birds. From cows, goats and pigs to marmosets of all shapes and sizes, lemurs, meerkats, flamingos, owls, Penguins, a Serval and so on. I've already managed to forget the names of most of the animals there but they were all cute. And Llamas - don't forget the Llamas.
Probably my favourite animal though, was the tiny baby Meerkat tottering along looking as though if he slowed down his oversized head would topple him over. For such a tiny animal though, he had a fair turn of speed although I'm not convinced he was in full control of his legs. I think he just aimed himself at where he hoped to end up at.
One of the Meerkats had us in stitches as he'd obviously decided that the top of the infra-red lamp was the best and most comfortable place to be.
I've got a fair few, actually 148, photos of today but not a lot of the animal ones are all that good as I was shooting through glass most of the time and the reflections tend to blur the shots. I did manage to get a reasonable shot of the Fennec Fox with his huge ears - spot the difference.
Now one of these cute Foxes is in actual fact Alex in disguise and the other one is the real Fennec Fox. Have you spotted which is which yet? There were loads of these photo sets around the zoo and I think they made for a much more special experience for the young visitors.The zoo did have several shops dotted around, and I managed to restrict my spending to a Drusillas Park cuddly Penguin for Amber and Alex's name made up of alphabet cards with various Thomas the Tank Engine characters on for Alex. Unfortunately the one thing that blew that completely out of the water was the dedicated Thomas shop at the end !!!!! Needless to say the old plastic had to come out for that one.
We left the park round about 3.30pm and headed off to look for the Long Man as I'd seen a brown sign pointing to him not far from the zoo on the way in.
After grabbing the above photo of him, we decided to explore the lane we were in and quite by accident came upon some lovely tea gardens offering cream teas. Well we couldn't very well ignore that could we? So at 4pm we had tea in a Victorian garden - with the wasps.
There was a little gift shop at the tea gardens, and I bought myself an old fashioned wasp trap - we get loads of the little buggers in our kitchen. It's basically a glass rounded jar with a dimpled base with a hole in it. The idea is that you smear jam around the rim of the lower hole, the wasps fly in and become trapped. Not sure what stops them from flying out again, but it works - so I'll give it a try.
After tea we pootled off back to the A259 through Eastbourne - well round Eastbourne - we're not that daft - and past Pevensey to pick up the A27 back towards Hastings. We then proceeded to spend 2 hours stuck in traffic jams which melted away suddenly with no indication of what had caused them !!! Don't you hate it when that happens. Where do all the cars go? Is there some sort of genteel black hole that scoops up all the cars in front of you, when it somehow senses you have reached the end of your tether and are about to hotwire the carhorn to the brake peddle? Does a hole open up and swallow them all? Or are they some form of hallucination created by the local tourist board in order to persuade you to pull over and spend even more money at the local Beefeater? That's what we did in the end, and despite the beefburgers and fries at lunch and the cream tea at 4 we still found room for Rump Steak and chips (OH) and minted lamb with dauphinoise potatoes for me - which was delicious. That, with added drinks and sausages and chips for Alex who at that time was hyper from the jam he'd scoffed at the cream tea, cost us £41. So an expensive day it was although, as far as I'm concerned, totally justifiable.
Anyway that's it for this year. We're planning the odd away day at weekends for the rest of the summer and beginning of the Autumn, but nothing on the scale of this last week. Which I am sure is probably very good news to our bank accounts.
Do keep a weather eye on this blog as I'll update it from time to time with the further adventures of the mad people from Kent.
Glad you have had a good week and you probably had quite decent weather.Here in North wales we have had a much better week and actually managed to get some gardening done.I don't know your part of the country apart from passing through on our way to Dover but it certainly looks lovely.
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