Roaming with The Robertsons

Our final day took us to see some more animals at Dudley Zoo and Castle. We debated whether two zoos in a week was a bit too much but, we both agreed from our visit, that it was definitely an excellent decision! If you have read our blog before, you would know that most of our holidays involve a trip to the zoo and you'd think that we would be bored of them by now. However, what we are learning is that every zoo offers something slightly different. Dudley gave us an opportunities to see some animals that you don't commonly see in a very close up manner, and we found that the enclosures were well designed for visitor benefit! Some of our highlights included the wolverines, arctic foxes, sloth (with baby!), gelada, and of course the giraffes and red pandas. The zoo itself was quite hilly in places due to being situated around the castle, but the addition of this in the centre made it even more unique.  After wandering around most of the zoo, we opted to get some lunch in the Oak ...

The fourth day of our holiday, once we had settled back into reality after the high of spending two days with the giraffes, took us on a trip back in time to the Black Country Living Museum . This is an open air museum that has reconstructed houses, shops and workshops spanning the Industrial Revolution up until post-war times. We weren't sure what to expect from our visit but have to say that we were very pleasantly surprised. As we visited in the week during term time, there were a lot of school groups around but very few other visitors which meant that there was plenty of chance to explore. What made the visit for us was that all of the members of staff were forthcoming with information when you entered a house or shop which helped bring their stories alive. We also made the most of the opportunity to listen to various talks and watch demonstrations including a lesson in the school and watching a short black and white comedy in the cinema. We also took a trip to T. Cook's Sw...

As previously mentioned, the main reason we came on this holiday to the West Midlands was to go to West Midlands Safari Park where we had booked an overnight stay in one of the giraffe lodges . We last went there in 2023 when Shannon had booked the red panda cottage for Nicole's birthday, and had since been wanting to return to stay with her favourite animals. We managed to book the lodge as part of a 20% off deal making it much more affordable, however we still think that a trip is great value for money.  Our day started with just a short drive from our AirBnB to the safari park. We aimed to arrive for opening time to make the most of our two days in the park. As lodge guests, there is an allocated parking area close to the entrance and you can check in on arrival to collect all the information relating to your stay and your wrist bands for entry / exit to the park and the rides. Once checked in at the lodge reception, where we were made to feel very welcome, we made the decision...

When people asked us where we were going on our summer holiday this year, I'm not sure they were that impressed when we said 'Birmingham' or the 'West Midlands'. However, there was a very good reason why we were heading to this area of the country, and that was to have a special 48 hours staying with the giraffes at West Midlands Safari Park. When we previously embarked on a similar trip, we headed down on the morning of the first day but found that this meant we didn't arrive until mid-morning, so we decided to do things differently this time and sandwich our visit within a few days away. Therefore, to start our trip, we headed to one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Birmingham area - Cadbury World. This is somewhere that Nicole had been a few times as a child but was a first for Shannon.  We had booked onto an early afternoon time slot at Cadbury World, so after setting off from home we made our way to a National Trust property for a quick look a...