Adventures in GPSing / Dudley Castle

When our meetings in jolly old Wolverhampton (this is two Thursdays ago...9/20/07) finished up around 11:00 a.m., Shelley and I found ourselves in the West Midlands with several hours to kill. Throughout the duration of trip we had found ourselves nothing short of amazed at Shelley's new GPS (which really is a marvel), so when we got to the car we fired it up and said "Show me the points of interest!" It gave us several, but the third or fourth choice was Dudley Castle. And we were off.

It turns out Dudley Castle is now part of the Dudley Zoological Gardens, located in the small town of, well, Dudley. Originally built in 1071, it went through various iterations until being largely destroyed in 1750, and then reopened as a zoo in 1921. It really makes for quite the unique attraction- you can look at the snowy owls, then the tigers, then wind your way up the 900 year-old staircase to see the penguins. Personally, I was more interested in the castle, because we have zoos here.

But there were some interesting parts of a United Kingdom zoo- most notably was how close you could get to the animals. There was a "Wallaby Walk," which let you walk right through the middle of the wallaby pen. There were guardrails to keep us on the path, but nothing to keep the wallabies and their four-inch claws away from us. Which is not to say that we were in any danger, because they all slept right through our visit (I figure they've seen a lot more humans than we have wallabies). There was also "Walk with the Lemurs," which was a similar path through a wooded setting, with Lemurs everywhere. We were standing and watching a group of them climb a tree when one stepped over my foot to cross the path. Not only was it interesting from a nature perspective, but it was a sort of commentary on the British vs. American mindset: You'd never get that close to a wild animal in the US, no matter how cute and fuzzy it may be. If a kid tormented a lemur to the point where it chewed his nose off or something, some lawyer would sue the zoo for every penny they could get. Whereas in the UK, the jury would be like "The sign said not to touch them, you bloody prat." In any case, it gave me the chance to get really close to some animals I otherwise wouldn't have been able to. Plus, now I can add wallaby and lemur to the types of poo I've had on my shoes.

The zoo is really more "around" the castle than "in" it, which you can kind of see in this picture. There are several exhibits in what's left of the great hall, and you can climb the remaining tower. Unfortunately, the only camera we had was Shelley's phone, but it still takes pretty good pictures. Here's me standing outside the museum part:Don't you love the super-low doorway? It kind of made me feel like a giant- kind of like when I hang our with Ramya and her friends. At this point I should also mention that I didn't pack any warm clothes for this trip. I left directly from Rehoboth beach, where it was sunny and warm. Thank goodness we stopped by a Banana Republic outlet (tax free- go Delaware!) where I bought a sweater, because I wore that thing every day. I swear that it was snowing in Preston, but Shelley insists it was just a fine mist. I know what I saw. But that's neither here nor there. When we got to the top of the tower, there was actually a pretty good view.You can't really tell in the picture, but there are names and initials and "PB hearts JH" carved all over this poor tower, proving that there are teenage vandals in every country. I said "Just imagine, some hooligan could've carved they're named in here five-hundred years ago. We could be looking at medieval graffiti!" Shelley replied "I'm guessing the ones in Sharpie are a little more recent." Believe it or not, the sun actually came out while we were up there, which allowed us to take this fun picture:Yes mom, I was standing on the ledge of the tower. But notice that I had one hand on the castle, one hand waving. Safety first!

The moral of the story here is that while I wouldn't plan a trip to the UK just to visit the Dudley Castle and Zoological Gardens, it was certainly a nice surprise. And it strengthens my belief that if you drive around long enough in rural England, something interesting will present itself. That something interesting is usually a castle, but hey. It works for me!

Up next, karaoke for Ramya's birthday. But first, Notre Dame at Purdue! If Purdue wins, they would be 5-0 while the Domers would be 0-5, and I would just be beside myself with joy.