Beatrix on safari - our last hurrah

We all woke late this morning. The sun was shining over the marina, a vast improvement on the last few days. Jemima thought we were getting our boat to Horringer today, and was very excited; so to mitigate the disappointment, we headed off to spend our last day in Santander's safari park. (In a strange coincidence, we spent our last day of our Florida trip viewing animals, at the Miami Zoo that time. Maybe it will become a family tradition.)

Thankfully the safari park accepted motorhomes - it turned out it was more like a big zoo you drive around, you didn't drive through the actual enclosures. And it was very well done. The landscape was quite unusual with strange rock formations sticking out of it, and they'd used the shapes to help create the different areas, plus some very unobtrusive wooden fencing - it was all very naturalistic and quite attractive. We saw all sorts: kangaroos, bison, deer, tigers, gorillas, zebra, giraffes, llamas, elephants and ostriches. But the two highlights were the reptile house, which was the best we've seen: large well-designed glass enclosures with all sorts of snakes, including two enormous anacondas, and a great iguana section; and a monkey mountain, where a troop of something monkey/ ape like (I missed the name) was living on a mountainside. We could see them from above, over a stone wall, and could have stayed for hours, watching the interactions: there was a tiny baby clinging to its mum, with (presumably) dad grooming mum; slightly older babies leaping and playing; others having a shouting argument over something or other - it was monkey life playing out right in front of us.

Jemima then wanted a nap, and fell asleep in my arms, so we decided to adjourn to tonight's night stop: an Aire by a lake just outside the park gates within sight of the elephant enclosure. Kevin and I drank tea in the sun while she slept, then we all fed the ducks before retiring to Beatrix for playing, dinner, and evening TV. 

And that's the end of our last day in Spain: off to the ferry port tomorrow for our 3pm sailing, so it's our last night in Beatrix tonight. But not quite the end of our trip: we've still got 24 hours on the ferry, then the drive from Portsmouth before it's really all over. So still time for some more adventures.

Morning marina view:

Safari fun:

Jemima can now barely see through her fringe...:

Tea in the sun:

Feeding the ducks:

Santander marina to the safari park (except that we went through the park):