Midlands Holiday - Day 4
There are three main things we found that you can visit when using Nuneaton as a base, all of which involve a bit of a drive - Twycross Zoo, the National Space Centre in Leicester and Warwick Castle. Today we picked Twycross Zoo as it was such a beautiful day it seemed a waste to spend it indoors. Actually it was hot as hell though and I’m burnt to a frazzle. Well, I just didn’t expect sun after the summer we’ve been having so I didn’t bring any sun cream!
The zoo is very laid back – quite a different atmosphere to the likes of Chester Zoo. What’s more they seem to spend their money on quality enclosures for their animals rather than on fancy cafés for their visitors. This is of course as it should be. That said the loos are still nice and clean.
It’s a World Centre for Primates, so it’s not a zoo for folk who don’t like monkeys. There are a lot of lemurs, gibbons, monkeys and all three of the great apes. Obviously there are the obligatory lions (lazing as far away from public gaze as they can manage) and a pool full of penguins. But they also have Asiatic Elephants in a large, interesting enclosure, giraffes, GIANT tortoises, dholes, bat eared foxes, sea lions, meerkats and prairie dogs among many others. It must have taken us five hours to visit every enclosure – it was deceptively large and a bit of a labyrinth.
Afterwards we went to an ancient thatched pub called the Cock Inn that claimed to have been a refuge for Dick Turpin back in the day. It had a really great atmosphere and good food. After popping into Sainsbury’s in search of some aftersun, it was time to head back to the hotel for a hot and sticky night – nope, not that kind of hot and sticky more’s the pity! There’s no aircon in Travelodges.
