England Trip, September 2009, Day 6
This was my last day in England before flying back the next day. I spent most of the day at the Longleat House and Safari. I didn't get any pictures of the inside of the house because photos were not allowed inside, but I took a lot of pictures on the safari as well as a few pictures elsewhere on the grounds. This wasn't exactly a typical tourist stop, but I love animals and I thought it would be a nice change of pace after all of the more touristy sites.
Giraffes!
A closer view of giraffes.
This giraffe was making funny faces for the camera.
Yep, this is a zebra.
We rode a double decker tour bus to view the safari, and this camel was in the middle of the road halting progress. The picture came out funny because of the reflection from the windshield. And because I'm a pathetic picture taker!
This is a close-up of the camel.
This is a picture of another camel. I love the faces on these things! It's impossible to look at a camel and not want to smile.
Another camel. Did I mention that I liked the camels?
An ostrich.
Rhinos.
English cows! Actually, I have no idea what kind of cows they were. I just found it amusing that there were cows on a safari in England.
Something with really long horns.
Tired tigers.
Lying lions.
A pretty white wolf.
This was a picture of Longleat house in the distance, taken from inside the safari bus as we finished up our trip.
The safari was over at this point and I was walking through an area with smaller animals. This was a very loud parrot.
A yellow mongoose.
Guinea pigs.
A royal python.
Another picture taken especially for my mom! She wasn't as pleased with this picture as she was with the one of the toilet.
I have no idea what this was. Some sort of monkey with a very bright yellow nose? Perhaps it had eaten too many bananas.
A Siberian chipmunk. I think our little brown chipmunks that we have out here are cuter.
I believe these were hedgerows. It looks more like a row of hamsters than a row of hedges to me, but whatever.
This was an Asian short clawed otter peeking its head up over the rocks.
They had a hedge maze here, and this picture was taken from inside of it. You can see that the hedges were higher than my head, so I couldn't really tell where I was in relation to the rest of the maze. With my sense of direction, you can imagine how lost I got in a place that was actually designed to get people lost!
This picture was taken from on top of one of the bridges that were scattered throughout the maze. They gave you a glimpse of the maze, and you would have thought this would have helped, but key parts of the maze were always blocked from view by the other bridges, or by the tower in the center. That tower was the ultimate goal. The maze was humongous. This picture only shows maybe a third of the maze at the most.
This is a picture of another part of the maze. I don't think I ever ended up in that part, because I would have remembered walking in that many circles!
I finally made it to the tower! It took me about half an hour. The picture was taken from the tower, facing out toward Longleat House and the other attractions they had nearby.
This is a picture of the topiary by the house. You can see they were trimmed into shapes.
A picture of the back of the house and a garden area.
And that's my last picture! I discovered I was sort of stranded at the Longleat House because there were no taxi queues there, but a very nice lady at the information desk helped me call one to pick me up. After a bit of a wait, the taxi arrived and drove me back to the train station so I could get back to Bath. It was about a 90 minute train ride.
Once I arrived back in Bath, I grabbed some food to tide me over. The hotel I was staying at didn't have meal service aside from breakfast, and there weren't any restaurants in the area, so I had to make sure to go on a quest for food before I went back to the hotel.
I got up the next morning and headed back to London for the flight back home. The flight back was much better than the flight there had been, because it was during the day and I wasn't trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep. They had a little computer thing on the plane that you could use to play games or watch movies. And I had a somewhat talkative (not in an annoying way) seat neighbor, so we talked some which also helped pass the time. He watched the newest Star Trek movie on his computer thing, so we found out we like some of the same shows. I watched the X-Men Origins Wolverine movie which I hadn't seen yet.
I had to switch flights in Atlanta. You have to go through passport control and customs when you arrive there from overseas, which I hadn't expected. When I flew home from a trip to the Vancouver area a couple years earlier, you went through all of that stuff at the Vancouver airport. I only had an hour layover in Atlanta, and almost all of that time was spent waiting in the long lines at Passport Control where I managed to get in the one line that wasn't moving a single inch. So I finally got desperate and switched lines, and THEN the line I had been in previously started moving. So once I got through all that, I had to get my baggage, then recheck my baggage, then I went on a mad dash to get to my flight in time. I was in such a hurry that I ignored the trains that would have gotten me to my gate faster. I wasn't 100% sure they would take me where I needed to go, and I didn't have time to get lost, so I had a very long jog down to my gate.
I actually arrived at my gate with 15 minutes to spare before the flight was supposed to depart, and they hadn't started boarding yet. So it wasn't that close of a call, but I had never cut it that close on a flight before. I was very happy that I made it to my flight on time and didn't get stranded in Atlanta. It was great to get home.
And that's my last picture! I discovered I was sort of stranded at the Longleat House because there were no taxi queues there, but a very nice lady at the information desk helped me call one to pick me up. After a bit of a wait, the taxi arrived and drove me back to the train station so I could get back to Bath. It was about a 90 minute train ride.
Once I arrived back in Bath, I grabbed some food to tide me over. The hotel I was staying at didn't have meal service aside from breakfast, and there weren't any restaurants in the area, so I had to make sure to go on a quest for food before I went back to the hotel.
I got up the next morning and headed back to London for the flight back home. The flight back was much better than the flight there had been, because it was during the day and I wasn't trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep. They had a little computer thing on the plane that you could use to play games or watch movies. And I had a somewhat talkative (not in an annoying way) seat neighbor, so we talked some which also helped pass the time. He watched the newest Star Trek movie on his computer thing, so we found out we like some of the same shows. I watched the X-Men Origins Wolverine movie which I hadn't seen yet.
I had to switch flights in Atlanta. You have to go through passport control and customs when you arrive there from overseas, which I hadn't expected. When I flew home from a trip to the Vancouver area a couple years earlier, you went through all of that stuff at the Vancouver airport. I only had an hour layover in Atlanta, and almost all of that time was spent waiting in the long lines at Passport Control where I managed to get in the one line that wasn't moving a single inch. So I finally got desperate and switched lines, and THEN the line I had been in previously started moving. So once I got through all that, I had to get my baggage, then recheck my baggage, then I went on a mad dash to get to my flight in time. I was in such a hurry that I ignored the trains that would have gotten me to my gate faster. I wasn't 100% sure they would take me where I needed to go, and I didn't have time to get lost, so I had a very long jog down to my gate.
I actually arrived at my gate with 15 minutes to spare before the flight was supposed to depart, and they hadn't started boarding yet. So it wasn't that close of a call, but I had never cut it that close on a flight before. I was very happy that I made it to my flight on time and didn't get stranded in Atlanta. It was great to get home.