It’s been a busy weekend!
Friday, David and I both had the day off work and we drove the two hours to Doncaster to, Yorkshire Wildlife Park. We had visited preciously but this time I wanted to see the newly arrived Polar Bears. YWP has two at the moment, Victor and his grandson Pixel.
Pixel was the more active of the two as can be expected and I enjoyed seeing him frolic in the huge lake they have in their enclosure. We stopped to listen to the Polar Bear talk and the keeper said they hope to house up to at least eight male Polar Bears! That will be something to behold!
In their collection YWP also have shy Amur Leopards and Tigers. There was one Amur Tiger on show, (the other is off show nursing cubs!). The Tiger showed a spectacular Flehmen response to a smell on a bush. This is when the cat smells a scent and shows its teeth by scrunching up its nose. Even domesticated cats do it as well!
We spent 4 hours at the park and left at 3 pm, ‘in plenty of time to miss the rush hour traffic’, I thought! We were not so blessed as when we visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park the previous weeks as it was intermittent driving and then stopping from the M1 to the M62! We hadn’t even reached the dreaded M60 before it was 5pm and David was starting to feel dizzy!
I managed to get David to agree on stopping off at a service station. Birch was only 1 mile away when the dizzy spells started, probably brought on by too much driving, sun stroke and hunger! We both had a Costa each and then David had a Burger King chicken sandwich and I had a very fattening vegi burger. At 26g of fat I would have opted for the salad if I had known! I wish fast food could be healthy as well as convenient! The break did us both good. It roused my spirits and as we hit the motorway again, the traffic jams eased so it was a straight, none stop route back home! Poor Artie was left alone for 11 hours straight, he must have thought we had deserted him!
On Saturday, not content with walking for miles the previous day, we headed into Liverpool city centre to wander the streets in search of ducks! We followed the Aquaducked map and snapped the 20 ducks on display. They each informed of 20 firsts that had happened in Liverpool! Amongst one of my favourites was the Beetles Duck. It was indeed colourful!
Christine Lucas 