Statelady & Chezp's London Adventure: COMPLETED!!! About This Page:

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Sunday 16 November – part two: “if I had to wear that, I’d sit too!”



Our tour completed, we left the Castle via the front door, your own chance to feel like Royalty for just a moment and then across the courtyard, we stopped to have a look in the dog collar Museum, which is also cunningly disguised as a shop. As Kevan commented, “if I had wear some of those collars, I’d sit too!” Some really were lethal contraptions with metal spikes all over them!





Leeds Castle



From there, we wandered round the other side of the Castle, as I knew from previous visits that this was be a real place to take photos. It's the shot they always used in postcards and Maureen and I made sure we got our own picture postcard views as well, while the men just sat there and laughed at us. They were soon laughing on the other side of their faces when Maureen started videoing them!



From there, we paid a brief visit to the Christmas shop, although there really wasn't that much in there, certainly not Christmas staff, which was disappointing. Then we walked through Lady Baillie’s Garden. She was one of the most recent owners of Leeds Castle and in the summer, the gardens are really something to see, but in November they did lack colour somewhat. There were still one of two plants in flower, but not many, which was a shame, but not surprising.



Next on the tour was the aviary, again an addition by Lady Baillie and they have a wonderful collection of all types of birds, including toucans, parrots and cockatoos. One of them said “hello” as you went to leave him. Of course, he wouldn't do it for Maureen when she had the video camera running, but that's animals for you, they never perform on cue!





"Hello" Mr. Cockatoo!



I was particular fascinated by the toucans. I love the markings on their beaks and it was the first time I had ever seen them eat. It quite a sight, I can tell you!





The toucans feasting



Our final stop on our tour of the Castle estate was the maze. Every time we come here, I think “do we will really have to do this again?”, but the answer is “yes you do” and the simple reason for that is what's waiting for you at the end of the maze. When you do eventually find your way to the centre of the maze, you leave through the most amazing underground grotto, which is well worth seeing.



The last time Mark and I went into the maze, it took us what seemed like forever to get out again and I'm sure we went round the same parts time and time again, that time we were helped out of the maze by the Leeds Castle staff member who was on the top of the centre of the Maze (directly over the grotto). Of course we didn't tell Maureen Kevin any of this, but I did notice as we all went into the maze that the staff member was today at the entrance, so we wouldn't get any help from him. I began to wonder how long someone has to be trapped in there, before they send out the search parties!



Fortunately, both Mark and I seemed to remember the correct route quite well from the last time we were in there and we reached the centre in about 10 minutes. It helps to have an idea of where the exit is (we knew it was to the right of the maze and kept our efforts centred on that area). The odd thing about this maze is that there are no real dead ends, it's just very confusing and literally, within a couple of minutes of being in there, you've lost all sense of direction.



The grotto was very intricately decorated with Shells and flash photography shows them up beautifully (there was no one else in there at the time, so I didn't feel bad about taking flash photos in there).





The underground grotto



It's just as well we did go through the maze to get to the grotto As we came out, we saw one young girl trying to get in the grotto through the exit and the staff member told her she had to go through the maze!



By now, we were at the end of the estate, but luckily there’s a land train (essentially it’s a Land Rover that pulls some carriages behind it) that runs every half an hour from there back to the car park. Otherwise it would be a long walk back and it would be uphill as well! We had about 10 minutes to wait for the land train and then we were on our way back and giving our feet a well earned break. You still have to walk a little way up the hill from where they drop you off, as they make sure you go through stop on way out. They’re not silly, you know – they don’t miss any marketing opportunity, a bit like Disney really!





One final shot of Leeds Castle



Next: “whose bear is it again Maureen?”