The Wonders of the Isle of Wight with Darren, Barbara & Jackie

 The Wonders of the Isle of Wight 

What a beautiful day to be heading out to visit the infamous tourist attraction The Needles. The views were spectacular. 

We got creative down at the sand shop where we all chose an ornament and filled it with the different  coloured sand that you can only find here on the island. We were all pretty impressed with our creations. 

It was then onto the glass factory where we watched the skilled craftsmen create some incredible glass vases and ornaments. The sweet factory was also a real treat and we learnt the process of sweet making....and luckily for us we got to sample some sweets too!

A fabulous day was spent at  Godshill Model Village which is  spread over two acres of beautiful, landscaped gardens. The models are all scaled-down buildings and village scenes that can actually be found in Shanklin and Godshill. We all helped to answer a quiz sheet, with the questions based on things we could find there.

A must visit was to Monkey Haven in Newport; an award-winning primate rescue centre where the resident monkeys had been rescued from awful situations and brought here to live a happy life in a caring environment. We listened to the keepers explaining how they are cared for, and we really enjoyed seeing nearly twenty species of monkeys, a variety of owls and the amusing meerkats. All of the creatures were very well cared for, and the monkeys loved to put on an acrobatic show for the visitors - jumping high and swinging from their play equipment to entertain us. We also managed to catch the meerkats at feeding time, and they too made us laugh at their antics. 

An ice cream treat is always welcome and it tasted even better besides the sea! 

We did our best Robin Hood impersonations as we headed down to the archery range. After a few practise goes we were all soon hitting the target with some impressive scores.