On Safari!

An exciting day today, with a trip to the Highland Wildlife Park! A pleasant drive up there, with a half hour stop in Pitlochry while the driver had some compulsory sandwiches and the 30p (30p!) toilets made a fortune.

Jasper, the Education Officer at the Park, joined us on the bus and gave us a running commentary as we drove around the park. He’s obviously used to dealing with bus loads of schoolkids, and would shout at us, ‘Where do you think the Himalayan Tahr comes from?’ I wanted to shout out, ‘Wales?’

The bus windows were not the cleanest, of course, which made trying to see anything at all rather futile, even if it wasn’t camouflaged. But we continued peering out as he pointed out various animals, including the extremely rare Przewalksi’s Horses.

‘Look! There’s a Vicuna! See the hill, then the tree - just below there. It’s on the floor.' [sic]

It is not the floor, it’s the ground.

I couldn’t see a thing.

While this tour went on, Jasper passed around various bits and pieces, including large antlers, which, if the bus had lurched at the wrong moment would have taken out the eyes of several people in one go.

I had a great time once off the bus, though. I was mesmerised by the red pandas, the snowy owls, the arctic fox and the snow monkeys. I was within a few feet of a couple of polar bears as they got fed. They have a super enclosure, the third largest in the world. Or was it Europe?

But it was the lynx that I watched for the longest time. They were gorgeous. There were some teenage ones, and they were stalking each other and playing. And they don’t answer to ‘Puss, puss!’

A nice drive back with a glorious sunset over the west. And then I dozed off till we arrived back at the zoo. Perfect.