After yesterday was announced the “hottest day of the year so far” spotting that today was going to be a beautiful day, not a cloud in sight, it made sense to get into the car and go for a drive.
It’s a terrible day to own an open top car. If I put the top down I’d be redder than a baboon’s arse before I got to Stoke, and that’s before going through a walk through some woodland there.
So I kept the roof on and when I got to Stoke, added my own portable version.
Technically I didn’t go to Stoke, which is not a terribly nice place. I went to a small village just south of the town that has the sort of country estate I dream of being able to afford. I wasn’t there though for the gardens, the shopping village or the Premier Inn (which is listed as one of the estate’s attractions).
I went for the monkeys.
Someone I worked with had recommended the place, so I didn’t do any reading ahead, just turned up, bought a ticket and wandered in. Overtaking two roving bands of toddler encumbered mothers on the approach I looked back and saw the carpark rapidly filling with more. Clearly arriving early was a good choice.
After negotiating the double-gated entry (that doesn’t stop you opening both gates at once) I found myself on a dusty track laid out through the forest. Around 200 yards in a young man was wearing sun glasses, probably to cope with the glare of his bright yellow t-shirt. He was escorting a monkey along the path, before it ducked under the knee-high wooden fence and moved into the undergrowth. I asked him what sort of monkeys I could expect to see and found out that they only had one species: Barbary Macaques. Over 170 of them.
I expressed surprise, and then made the guy jealous by mentioning that I’d seen some of them late last year, in the wild, on a mountain in Morocco.
The next forty minutes was very reminiscent of that walk through the forest in Morocco. The monkeys looked much the same, behaved much the same, showed the same general disregard for me walking near them taking photographs.
The main differences were the number of yellow shirted staff there to control the soon to arrive hordes of two foot high humans (and their handlers. I mean, mothers), the surprising supply of ducks and the densest concentration of squirrels I’ve seen for years.
The woods would be lovely to walk through even with none of that. Add in the dozens of sunbathing, grooming, eating and playing monkeys enjoying the sunshine just yards from (and occasionally on) the path and I need to track down the person that recommended it to me and thank them.
It’s a shame it’s in Stoke, but I’ll definitely head back.