Our last day here, we leave tomorrow afternoon, and there will not be time to do any tourist things due to the cleaning and packing to be done. So today we picked another place that should be fun for the boys and adults alike: Coleman's Petting Farm.

Not long after we arrived it was the scheduled time for egg hunting - they use real eggs and hide them in and on various hay bales in an area that was closed off by hay bales. Between them Ethan and Owen collected about a dozen eggs with no breakages! A bit different from Easter, instead of candy they got a bag of bread for the ducks!

Grandma bought them each a bag of feed that could be given to goats among other animals, so next we headed out of the central barn to feed some goats outside, after first feeding the ducks with the bread. In addition to goats they had a couple of wooly pigs, a couple of llamas, a couple of dwarf ponies, and various ducks, geese and chickens.

Next we headed back into the main barn as it was time to stroke and feed the rabbits and guinea pigs. They had a lop-eared rabbit called Angel, two guinea pigs called Honey and Jet, and another rabbit called Chilli. Both Ethan and Owen enjoyed stroking the soft fluffy animals.

It's sooo fluffy!

Then the boys were allowed to bottle feed some lambs. If I understood correctly, the lambs were from triplets and essentially they were orphans - presumably the runts would not be fed by the mother, so they have to be bottle fed instead. Despite a school party going ahead of us to feed the lambs, they were a hungry bunch and drank pretty much all that was offered.

There was a play barn that had an indoor zipline, and so we had some fun playing on that until it was time for the hayride. The hayride was pretty much the last thing we planned to do there and we all went along. At a couple of points around the ride they have a passive infra-red sensor, or perhaps a break-beam sensor that activates a water sprayer, so everyone got a good dowsing as we went around.

After looking in the shop we headed back to the caravan for lunch and so BOTH boys could take a nap, they both really needed it!

Dinosaur Isle

We went across the island to Dinosaur Isle today.  It is a relatively small museum-like place with a few fossils and a few models.  Most of the exhibits and texts were aimed at older children, certainly school age, so we didn't linger too long.

We had brought along a picnic to have on the beach, since we were at Sandown, which is one of the sandy beaches.  Grandma and the boys paddled a little at the sea edge - I wasn't prepared to venture into the undoubtedly frigid sea but after, Ethan, Owen and I dug in the sand for a while before we had lunch.  The tide was definitely coming in - where they first paddled at the sea edge was now underwater.

Walking along Culver Parade beachfront

There was a really nice set of parks next to the Dinosaur Isle building, one had sports equipment aimed at adults, one had a roundabout, swings, a rubber-tyre zipline etc. and yet another had some interesting almost space-like sculptures for climbing on and around.

We had fun there for a while before getting an ice cream cone for the boys and eating it at the seafront.  There was an amusement arcade there, so Alison and her mum played there while the boys and I went back to the zipline for more turns.

One last time on the beach, again with me digging with the boys.  We made a couple of small sandcastles and small holes together before heading back.  The sea air seems to be good and helping tire the boys out.

Gurnard/West Cowes beach

After such a full-on day yesterday, we thought that we would have a more relaxing day today.

The plan was to walk or drive down to the shore that is accessible from the campground park here (Thorness Bay).  When we got there the tide was out a fair way and it exposed a large area of smelly seaweed on a shale/stone beach, no sand and not very pleasant.  However, since we went in the car (to help rest Grandma's legs, after yesterday), we just drove out of the park and on to Gurnard, which has a beach according to one of the guide books.  The first place we stopped was not much better than what we'd left behind, but we carried on and third time was the charm!


We were virtually back at West Cowes, but there was a beach area with public toilets ("loos", as we often say here), chalets (you know, the little beach hut thingys), and a really nice playground. (Interesting fact: Cowes is the starting place for the Around The World Yacht Race)

The play area had a wooden construction boat in the centre that had a rope-chain & wood bridge and cargo net to get onto it with, and a large basket swing like those we had encountered at Riverside Park in Bitterne and Hundred Acres Wood.

There was also a challenging log walkway made of three long logs that were still round and an even more challenging log "balance beam" that was a single log mounted on springs!  I could only make it halfway across as it was very windy, and it is no easy feat to walk on a wobbly spring-loaded, rounded surface!

We detoured at a pottery barn (I think it was this one), almost literally this was a building that probably had been converted from a barn, and now was used for pottery crafts and selling such wares, not to be confused with the American company/store Pottery Barn!  Then we headed back to the campsite via a Lidl store (a discount store of German origin, known for budget shopping, but not too bad and a fair selection of fresh produce and refrigerated items).

After lunch we went to the on-site indoor pool for about an hour until it was closed due to a potty mishap in the baby pool - unfortunately caused by Owen, we were rather embarrassed.

Despite being "an easy day", we still managed to cram a lot in!

Blackgang Chine

Blackgang Chine was on the agenda for today.  No it is not a Triad Chinese Mafia group, it is an amusement park on the Isle of Wight! :-)

There really is quite a lot packed into this park, they seem to have made most of their seaside cliff perch location with nicely landscaped gardens and lots of amusements dotted throughout.  One of the first things we did was walk through a maze, a proper "English" hedgerow maze - Alison, myself and the boys did this together, and it started to rain so we got faster and faster to try to get out before it might really pour on us!

One big drawback is that the site is anything but flat, and I was thankful that we did not enter the park with anything that had wheels (like the cart, for example)!  We initially explored an area that had some of the older attractions, such as a Fin Whale skeleton you could walk through, and also various steam engines, such as this one:

We thought that we might be disappointed, but then we realized that we'd only seen a tiny portion of the park and all that it offered - we found a restaurant where we had a cup of tea and stayed out of the rain for a short while before going on to explore the rest of the park.



We had our hands stamped on entry (like at Legoland) so that we could leave and return as needed during the day, and this was great news since we had brought along a picnic.  We initially left the picnic in the car, and then later we found a large play area with a Pirate ship and lots of picnic tables and benches, so we left grandma with the boys while Alison and I collected the picnic.

Being such a full day, and as I was running around with the boys, I did not take many photos, so we only have a few to share, like this one of the boys sat on a bench with talking dwarfs either end:

I found it slightly ironic that they had re-created the American Wild West here, there was even a Davy Crockett figure - I thought we'd left that behind in Texas. Here are myself and the boys driving a stage coach:

We went on to the "Snakes and Ladders" area that had just re-opened (it had been closed due to weather in the morning, but deemed dry enough to re-open). Some rather steep ladders to climb and steep slides to come down again!  Then we walked through a fairy-tale area with fairies, mushrooms and even a castle.

After Sleeping Beauty's Castle we went to "Rumpus Mansion" - a real house that had been converted into an "attraction" - something of a haunted house with animatronics, but rather tired and a bit too scary for the boys.  I took Ethan and Owen into the Smugglers' Cave while Alison and her mum started to head back to the exit/shop.  I found the rest of the smugglers at Smugglers' Rest:

That was pretty much the last area apart from the gift shop that we spent time at.  The boys selected one gift for themselves each that they spent their own money on (with Mummy & Daddy's approval), and then bundled back into the car for another head-shakingly bumpy ride across the island (we are staying pretty much diametrically across the island from Blackgang Chine).

The Needles

Today the weather was supposed to be not too bad so we planned to visit Alum Bay and "The Needles" - the west 'point' of the Isle of Wight (ha ha).

Although it didn't rain it was pretty darn cold!  We arrived at the Needles Park before anyone else it seemed. We took the chair lift down to the beach and got off for a short stroll.

It was even colder on the beach, which was mostly stone at that point.  I took to trying to skim stones on the sea but there was a distinct lack of of flat round stones.  Owen tried to copy me, but his efforts appeared to consist of finding the largest rock he could hold in one hand and hurling it into the sea - I'd say that the results were about the same, I was not very successful in skimming!

There was a cafe where we stopped briefly, and also the Alum Bay glassworks store, but we were not inspired to buy any glass ornaments or keyfobs etc.

We decided to head to Yarmouth where we would buy fish & chips and sit on the beach front or pier to eat them.  Owen had fallen asleep, and the one Fish & Chip shop in Yarmouth did not have what Alison wanted. So Owen was loaded into the cart in and under blankets and Ethan and I pulled it onto the pier where we waited in the freezing cold for what felt like forever for Alison and her mum to get back from another fish and chip shop.  It was very welcome to have hot food at the end of the pier!

Next we though we'd go to the Garlic Farm and shop, so back into the car for another bouncy ride on the IoW's fantastic roads (...um, not!   Some roads appear to be a a series of well mad potholes with the occasional well-meaning bit of road to interfere with the otherwise undriveable surface). Also, despite an apparent physically imposed top speed limit of 40 mph (as well as being the actual legal speed limit on many parts of the roads), the locals seem to delight in going at 50 mph or more.  The book I'm reading now, Roadside Crosses by Jeffery Deaver, springs to mind frequently!  We sampled some interesting chutneys and other savoury concoctions made with garlic, and learned a little about garlic in the process.

Last stop was the campsite indoor pool again for a very short swim, since the pool closed at 5pm.

Owl and Monkey Haven

Today we decided to go to the Owl and Monkey Haven on the outskirts of Newport.  It was a really nice place, very new with nice enclosures for the monkeys and owls. Many of the monkeys and owls had been ostracized or attacked within their groups while at previous zoos, though some had been rescued from being illegal pets.

There was a really nice play area for Ethan and Owen to play in while we had a cup of tea/coffee.  At 11:30 they had a "meet the keeper" event with the owl keepers and we were allowed to stroke the chest of a Tawny owl (I think, we were a little late joining the presentation, but the keeper was saying that the eyes are large and all dark indicating that it is a nocturnal animal).  Then the boys were allowed to touch an Eagle Owl owlet, which was 6 weeks old today.  He/she was already developing flight feathers and had tail feathers (they can't easily sex birds of prey).  It was one of a brood of 3 bred in captivity, and they are handling it and training it for things like school visits (and this encounter).

Across the road is a Lavender farm and teashop. Since we had brought a picnic and drinks we didn't visit their tea room, but we had a look (and sniff) around their gardens and gift shop; very nice, we all liked the scent and aromas of real lavender.

It started to rain proper as we were returning to the car (it had sprinkled a little all morning). So we decided to stop there and eat our picnic in the car, while we planned what to do next.  We decided to head back towards the campsite in Thorness Bay, via the supermarket on the other side of Newport.

After returning to the site we changed into our swim stuff and went to the pool.  Alison sat on the side watching and we all played in the pools.  Ethan liked the water slide!

We had a lovely dinner of filled pasta in a creamy tomato sauce, with Caesar salad on the side with olives and garlic bread.  The boys ate really well, especially Ethan, who later also had a slice of bread and butter and an apple too.

Boys in bed by eight o'clock and we watched "Popstar to OperaStar" on TV - some interesting participants including Midge Ure (of Ultravox fame), Cheryl Baker (Bucks Fizz - previous UK Eurovision Song Contest winners), Andy Bell (Erasure), and Melody (from the PussyCat Dolls) (those are half of the 8 that I can remember).

Not bad for our first full day on the island!

Red Funnel Ferry

We are about to leave for the Isle of Wight, we are loaded on to the Red Funnel ferry and they have a Wi-Fi hotspot so I thought I'd take the opportunity to create a short post. It is bright and windy and for now we are sat up on deck. We are looking forward to our week on the Isle of Wight. I hope that we can find another free wifi connection later!