Today Uncle Robber and I took the children to Stoke on Trent, or to be more precise, Trentham Monkey Forest.
We’ve been wanting to go for a while, and as we are busy this holiday, ticking things off of our wish list, we decided it was now or never.
It is in the grounds of Trentham Gardens, just on the outskirts of Stoke, and consists of 60 acres of forest in which 140 Barbary macaques are allowed to roam freely. The monkeys live as close to the way they would in the wild as possible. The monkeys are studied, and there is also a breeding programme. Macaques are an endangered animal, with only about 10,000 left in the wild. The monkey forest’s aim is to help boost numbers and eventually find a way to release the monkeys safely back into the wild.
I was slightly concerned, when we paid a fairly hefty sum to get in, that we would not see any monkeys. It doesn’t take 140 monkeys very long to spread out across sixty acres. I had visions of us spending all day hunting for monkeys and coming home with three, very traumatised children who would have to end up having ‘lack of promised monkey therapy’ at more vast expense.
The monkey people have figured this out. They have staggered feeding times for the monkeys in various sections of the park. Each family of monkeys likes to have their own territory, so you see different family groupings at each feeding time, and as they are quite keen on their grub, they are usually out in force.
They are rather wonderful. They are very close knit, and even the males help out with the babies, so you can never be entirely sure who is on nursery duty at any one time. They were also very chilled out by the presence of people. You are advised to stay about a metre back from them, which is a respectful distance. If they are nursing babies, you need to get further back, as they are very protective of their offspring.
There were several tiny babies, who were clinging to their parent’s fur. But there were also teenage monkeys who were intent on having an excellent game of running away with each other’s fruit supply and then shinning rapidly up trees before falling out spectacularly, but to no apparent ill effect.
There was the classic, boingy branch flinging them hither and yon routine, and the exciting, this tree is like a fireman’s pole routine which kept us amused for some time.
Although the monkeys have sixty acres to roam in, your path as a visitor is proscribed, and we spent about an hour getting around the whole of the park that was available to us.
The monkey forest is in two sections. The first part has a children’s play area, a cafeteria, gift shop and toilets, all of which looked very nicely built and cared for. When you want to see the monkeys you head to the next area of the park which has gates to stop the monkeys hanging out on the swings and pinching children’s ice creams.
Once you have bought your ticket you can go in and out between these two areas as much as you like. This takes the sting out of the prices rather. Adults cost £7 each and children £5. We had a voucher entitling us to one of the children going free, which also softened the blow.
A mile away there is the entrance to Trentham Gardens. This is a huge stately home and acres of parkland, which has a sensory walk, and a maze, and all kinds of other things going on. You can buy day tickets which allow you to access both the Gardens and the Forest, but because we had our discount vouchers it was cheaper for us to do it separately. If you buy the day ticket, you can move between both the gardens and the forests as many times as you like, and I would recommend this if you’re thinking of going for the day out.
* The post is called monkeys in the fog in homage to my best friend Rachel’s mum. When we were teenagers I was round at Rachel’s house one day and her mum said: ‘Oooh. I’d love to go and see that new film that’s out. You know, ‘Monkeys in the Fog.’
Rachel waited a beat and then said, absolutely straight faced: ‘I think you mean ‘Gorilla’s in the Mist.’
Awesome.
Places like that are very good; we went to the Foret des Singes in the Dordogne many years ago and spent many happy months afterwards teasing the girls telling them we must have left the real Lenin and Attila behind and ought to go back and swap them for our real daughters sometime. In fact I distinctly remember mentioning it again a couple of weeks ago.
Alienne
That always makes me think of Eddie Izzard. Il’ya un singe dans l’arbre!
We fed some of them monkeys a few months ago. There were baby ones as well. Fabulous
the title of your post reminds me of my aunt roberta. my aunt loves to read but has a *terrible* memory for titles. she once called jean auel’s “Clan of the Cave Bear” “Clan of the Clan Clan” and the subsequent book “Valley of the Horses” became “How Green Was My Horse.” we use that title to this day. and my mother calls the mountain gorrilla exhibit at the Bronx Zoo “gorrillas in the mist” although the zoo people call it “Congo and Highlands.”
Bronxbee
I love How Green Was My Horse!
Bev
cute is not the word.
some day, i’ll get her to send me a copy of the fly leaf i put on the cover i made to go with it… i think it involves a herd of welsh ponies and treks across frozen europe. but it’s been so long now, i can’t remember it all.