Sunday 16 March 2014

Garden Visiting In March - Part Two

My previous post was Part One of our trip to Manor Heath Park in Halifax. After our visit to the walled garden, we decided to visit the Jungle Experience. As we had Archie with us, Mick had to wait outside as dogs aren't allowed in this part of the park, but he didn't mind. Admission to the park and walled garden is free but there's a charge to enter the Jungle Experience, one whole pound. It was well worth it, and I don't know of many other attractions with such a low charge.


The Jungle Experience has a tropical atmosphere. Plants here come from all over the world, and there's plenty to see.




As I grow a couple of orchids myself, I enjoyed seeing some growing as they would in their natural environment.


There's an area containing carnivorous plants.


A tank holds butterfly cocoons.


On the top of the tank was this Owl butterfly feasting on a slice of orange. My photo really doesn't show its size, it was huge. These butterflies are usually found in rainforests and secondary forests in Mexico, Central, and South America.


As you might expect, the Jungle Experience has plenty of ponds and waterfalls.



Many of the ponds contain fish.


Some of the ponds contain Red Eared Terrapins.




Chinese Painted Quail wander around at leisure. They were introduced as the butterfly caterpillars were being eaten by spiders. They're ground eating birds and rarely fly.



There's plenty in the Jungle Experience to satisfy both plant and wildlife lovers.


The rest of our day was taken up in the park. There's a woodland walk and a park trail as well as a wildflower area. We didn't visit any of these, but would do so if we return. Instead, we gave Archie a good run on the expanse of grass. Our visit coincided with the start of the good weather and there were many families taking advantage of it. There's a great play area for children with many pieces of recently installed equipment and the Flutter-Bites Cafe, which was doing a roaring trade.

The spring bulbs were putting on a pretty display.



There's some lovely areas around the park to explore.



Manor Heath Park is great for a day out, with the added advantage that dogs can be taken along. The only downside was that dogs weren't allowed in the Jungle Experience so Mick didn't get to visit it, but we wouldn't have expected dogs to be admitted to an attraction like this anyway, so it certainly didn't spoil our visit.

Don't forget, if you haven't yet entered my giveaway, you've got until twelve noon on Sunday the 23rd of March 2014 to do so. Just leave a comment on The Cut Flower Patch post.

20 comments:

  1. How lovely to include the birds and other 'wildlife' too.

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    1. I hadn't read about the Jungle Experience so it was all a surprise. I saw something rustling in the plants and wondered what it was and out popped a quail.

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  2. Well worth a £1 by the look of it. Such places are always interesting with exotic plants and unusual creatures. Flighty xx

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    1. Definitely worth the £1. It was really interesting seeing plants we wouldn't ordinarily see growing here.

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  3. It's so tropics with a beautiful pond. The spring bulb display look so amazing. Thanks for sharing

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    1. We really enjoyed our visit, it certainly had something for everyone with the park land, the Jungle Experience and the walled garden.

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  4. Well you would be hard pushed to get more value for a pound even in Poundland Jo! The owl butterfly is most appropriately named.

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    1. It was well worth a pound. The Owl butterfly is so named because of the huge eyespots which resembel owls' eyes.

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  5. It sounds amazing, and you're right, a single pound is such a bargain. I love the quail and the terrapins. And I would have a fantastic time looking at all of the plants. Glad you enjoyed your visit so much.

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    1. It was a great day out. I hadn't read anything about the Jungle Experience before we went so the quail and terrapins were a surprise. I think we may return in summer, I think the walled garden which I wrote about in Part One will have changed quite a bit by then.

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  6. It would be a good place to be on a chilly day. Shouldn't they be called yellow eared terrapins.. ?

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    1. My coat came off while we were walking around, it was lovely and warm, in fact, my camera kept steaming up. One of the terrapins in my photos does look as though it has yellow ears, I wonder if it's a different kind.

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  7. Wow, what a gem of a place - it looks a great place to visit :-)

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    1. I didn't know about it until I started looking on the internet for somewhere to visit. It just goes to show that there are some wonderful places that we don't have a clue about.

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  8. What a fab experience, and all for a quid??? wow, that's what I call value. That owl butterfly looks incredible, I'd love to have seen that close up....and looking at the terrapins and quail had me thinking I was back in the rescue. I shall have to try and get here, it does look a good trip. Glad Archie gets to go with you...awwww...xxx

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    1. Places which allow dogs in always get a thumbs up from me. I don't expect everywhere to allow them in, the Jungle Experience isn't ideal for dogs, but the rest of the park is, so I don't mind that he has to miss parts out, but it means a lot to me that he's allowed in most of the places here. There's still some places which don't want you to part with so much money, these are the places where I'll tend to return, definitely value for money here. I'm a bit funny with butterflies, I don't like them flitting about, but I was ok here, there weren't any flying about, but I saw a couple of Owl butterflies on the plants, a lovely expereience.

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  9. That's a good price for a potter around. So many places are really expensive and I wonder how families can afford to visit them. looks a really lovely place.

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    1. We'd really visited the park for the walled garden, but this was the icing on the cake, definitely worth the pound admission. It's good to see that some councils appreciate how little some families have to spend on leisure activities and price their attractions accordingly. I'm sure children enjoy the Jungle Experience.

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  10. What a great day out. I love the turtles!

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    1. I liked the terrapins too, but the quail were quite cute.

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