Longleat Continued

So anyway, we had finished the (excellent) Safari park section of Longleat, and then drove past the extremely impressive house to the car park behind (which was actually pretty full, despite being there firmly out of season), we wandered around taking in a bit of the gardens -



- (very nice indeed) and then past the mini electric railway -

- and into the mini-butterfly house/gift shop (it's about a 60-40 split)
but actually that's a bit of a relief as huge butterfly houses can be a
bit draining (humidity-wise) especially dressed, as we were, for
indeterminate weather -




- and from there on to the Safari Boat -

- flanked by noisy Sealions -

- past invisible Hippos -

- and finally to the famous "Gorilla Island" where there now lives but one, extremely old Gorilla (who apparently is now of the equivalent age to a 90 year old man), and yet they still torture the poor old fellow by hiding his food all over the place -


- then into "Old Joes Mine" where fruit bats fly free (and right past you using their incredible powers of echo location) a quite extraordinary experience -

- however, flash photography was banned, so the only way we managed to get a decent shot was by me using my green focus assist lamp and Flyingpops to shoot low light, click the picture if you want to see them close up (however, they look like hamsters with wings) -

- next we went on the Gorilla Adventure simulator ride -

- which made Flyingpops feel distinctly unwell, and then on to the house itself, which has a zero photography policy (probably wise, considering the taste in art) -



- we stopped for a spot of lunch, and then headed back to the hotel, the plan to eat in Farley-Hungerford later on... ;)