More than a wet weekend in Wales
⬆intro next ➡Day 1 ~ May 15 ~ Home to Severn Bridge
A few years ago, Amanda's friend Jan bought her a rose for her birthday: a rose named “Amanda”! And appropriately enough, it flowers around her birthday time. It's in fine bloom as we set off.
It grows in a sunny corner of the front garden where we once had an apricot tree – well, two in fact, because one died and we replaced it with another one that also died. It's obviously a much more rose-friendly spot.
So we're off.
We have thought about a few options for a stop on the way, indoor or outdoor depending on weather. “STEAM” – the museum of the Great Western Railway in Swindon is definitely one choice, but that's most of the way to our destination and ideally we'd prefer somewhere nearer halfway. Something that sounds interesting is "The Living Rainforest". It would be rather unkind to call it a poor man's Eden Project, but that's probably the quickest way to describe it in a nutshell. It's a series of glasshouses, formerly an orchid nursery, transformed into a set of miniature rainforest ecosystems.
Well here we are.
As you walk towards the entrance, it's a kind of New Year Resolution Frog Wall! There are dozens of these metal frog silhouettes engraved with somebody's name and a pithy little mission statement, but I don't have much of a clue as to what it all signifies. Neither the venue website nor the great gods of Internet search are very helpful. Perhaps I have missed an explanatory sign.
Oh well, in we go.
This is the second-longest insect in the world!
This panel tells all.
And while we're doing mimetic insects, this leaf insect is really quite something! It still looks like a leaf even when you can see it clearly.
Phyllium philipinicum – from the Philippines, as the name implies.
Lizard time. Many of the animals, like this one, are in terrariums behind glass, so it can be difficult to get pictures without reflections.
This particularly good iguana, though, is well positioned for a clear shot.
What a neatly curled up snake!
Aha!
We first saw roul-rouls at the Eden Project, but they are posing much better for my camera here: maybe not such a poor man's version after all.
They're also known as “crested partridges”, although this seems a bit of a sexist designation, because...
...the female is just as pretty but rather less crested.
They're ground birds, not the sort of partridge you find in a pear tree (if indeed one does ever find a partridge in a pear tree outside the traditional song. It's been suggested, I understand, that “a pear tree” is a corruption of the French for partridge, “une perdrix“). Anyway, Wikipedia's article says that it “is a resident breeder in lowland rainforests in south Burma, south Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo”, which is interesting because we've been to many of those places but never seen one in the wild.
Incidentally, for the nerdy among you, it seems that ‘partridge’ is not a clade but a polyphyletic group. That is to say that some of the birds labelled ‘partridge’ are more closely related to non-partridges than to other group members. Read about the Perdicinae here.
The plant life is mostly a bit less photogenic (as is natural rainforest, to be fair) but not entirely so.
There's quite a bit more that I've left out, and while it isn't remotely on the same scale, it's a lot cheaper and less crowded than Eden. We would happily recommend it to anybody passing through that part of the world.
Back on the road after some clouds and hints of rain, the sky is clearing. Will it stay that way? The forecast isn't great, but who knows.
Ah, the fine crystal stemware at the Premier Inn, where luxury comes as standard. Ish. G&T in a mug for me, wine in a tumbler for Amanda. Gu-vu presides.
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