A rest day today and this afternoon we took a drive out to the New Forest Reptile Centre near Lyndhurst. It’s only about a 35 minute drive from home but I’ve never been there before, always intending to go but never making it!

As you can see from the photo the reptiles are not in glass fronted tanks but in natural surroundings outdoors which make them a bit hard to spot! Keeping still and watching carefully enables most types of lizard to be seen, half an adder projected out of some vegetation, the frogs could be seen but not the toads. Both the grass snake and the smooth snake were probably away on holiday!

It was nice to visit something both interesting and refreshingly non-commercial. The centre is about 1/4 mile off the main road and through trees so it’s perfectly quiet there, there is no entrance charge and nowhere to spend money – you can’t even buy an ice-cream or a cup of tea.