I.O.W Day 2 - 15/05/07

Woke up early but it was VERY cold so we stayed wrapped in three duvets until 9.30am. Finally dragged ourselves out of the warm cosy bed, had a quick brekky before setting off on a very windy and rainy day. Picnic packed, waterproofs on, Time 10am, destination Dinosaur Isle.

Dinosaur Isle is found on Culver Parade just down from Sandown Esplanade and is Britains first purpose built dinosaur museum and visitor attraction. The building itself is deigned in the shape of a pterosaur (above right) and houses fossils, life size models, and skeletal reconstructions of actual dinosaur remains found on the I.O.W. I had no idea that the I.O.W is so important regarding fossils and paleontology but having been to Dinosaur Isle I could tell you all about it now!

We arrived at the same time as a school party which is never great but with the rubbish weather and this being an indoor attraction, was inevitable. I'm also not above shoving small children out of the way so this didn't impact on my enjoyment of the museum too much anyway! The exhibition starts with the "Time Walk" which takes you through the different periods in time , and then splits the marine Cretaceous into three parts, with examples of fossils and information boards on each period.

You then move into the Dinosaur Gallery which is the main attraction and has life size reconstructions, one animatronic interactive model, and all sorts of skeletons that have been found on the island. Highlights were the Neoventor (thought to be related to Allosaurus) and the "Barnes High Sauropod" which measures about 15 metres in length. Quite a few of the big finds seem to have been made by unsuspecting families on holiday - now that's got to really piss the professionals off! I thought Dinosaur Isle was great - you can book guided tours to the sites of geological interest and for fossil hunting trips which sounds like fun, they also give free admission for fossil identification just in case you have discovered a new type of dinosaur. I did my best but I didn't find anything on this trip...

Having looked round Dinosaur Isle we emerged into some kind of force 10 gale and took shelter in Sandown Pier which has your typical British holiday amusements and to our glee a Crazy Golf course. Brilliant!
So we had a round on The Lost World Adventure Golf which sadly I lost and then played on the 2p shove machines for a little while.

At this point the weather seemed to be clearing a little, the sky looked less angry and you could walk upright against the wind so we seized the moment and headed up the Esplanade to The I.O.W Zoo. We had a picnic in the car park (which was to become a bit of a theme on this holiday) - Mark managed to park the car directly in front of the only other people picnicking in their car, completely obscuring their view of the sea. We moved to a different spot, ate the picnic and entered the zoo...

The zoo is small and really more of a sanctuary for big cats and lemurs but I LOVED it!! Their goal is to offer long term homes to captive animals who are not suitable for breeding or have been rescued, and to increase awareness of specific conservation schemes. They have a collection of monkeys and lemurs and a creepy crawlies house, but the main attraction is watching the big cats - Siberian and Indian Tigers, African Lions, and Jaguars. True to form a lot of the moggies were snoozing and weren't about to let a bit of rain intrude on this very important pastime. Some were active though and we witnessed a bit of a scuffle between the two male lions Charlie Brown and Snoopy who were very imposing! They seemed to be trying to impress the lioness Nahla who couldn't have cared less what the boys were up to.We saw a beautiful and unusual "marmalade" or "Tabby" Indian Tiger called Diamond who lives with his sister Aysha (bottom right) - apparently they have a very close bond and she did give her brother a wash while we were there which was nice to see. These two live in the new Ranthambore exhibit(see above) which seemed like a very good and up to date environment. There is a lot of development work going on at the park - they have also built the Kanha Exhibit which is modelled on Kanha National Park in central India. This is intended to help raise awareness of the national parks and conservation work going on in India. There are other areas of development in progress which will house Tigers already at the park once complete.

My favourite big cat lived in the Kahna Exhibit - Indian Tigress Zia ( right and below left). She lives with her sister Zena who is a rare white tiger. Zia was the most active Tiger of the day and was brilliant! She was stalking a member of zoo staff who was doing some groundwork near the enclosure - he said she is always doing it, to visitors as well as staff! Both Zia and Zena were hand reared so I guess it is a good game for her. In the picture on the right she is hiding behind the foliage waiting to pounce!

She was very inquisitive, playful, and charismatic. I completely fell in love with her and watched her for an AGE! There are too many big cats for me to mention by name but they were all beautiful and if you have a chance you can read about them all on the website or even better see them on the Meridian TV show Tiger Island (Sunday afternoons). Hopefully this show will raise awareness, revenue, and allow them to build the new enclosures that they want to. We had a look round the gift shop, bought a fridge magnet, key ring, and mousemat with Zia & Zena on (I really did fall in love with her!) before heading home. We both really enjoyed the Zoo - and agree that it was our favourite attraction in the whole trip.

We veered into The Old Smithy at Godshill on the way home which is a weird sort of collection of gift shops, gardens, and tea rooms - the Olds were out in force here and were loving it! Mark had been set the challenge of obtaining the best "bit of tat" to bring home as a gift for our mate Dave that he could find. We found the perfect example here at The old Smithy - a truly ugly ornamental thingy that was on offer at £1.00 because no one else in the world had poor enough taste to buy it!

We stayed warm and dry in our mobile home in the evening for dinner with some booze and a game of scrabble... which I won :o)