Garden Visiting In March - Part Two

My previous post was Part One of our trip to Manor Heath Park in Halifax. After our visit to the walled garden, we decided to visit the Jungle Experience. As we had Archie with us, Mick had to wait outside as dogs aren't allowed in this part of the park, but he didn't mind. Admission to the park and walled garden is free but there's a charge to enter the Jungle Experience, one whole pound. It was well worth it, and I don't know of many other attractions with such a low charge.

The Jungle Experience has a tropical atmosphere. Plants here come from all over the world, and there's plenty to see.

As I grow a couple of orchids myself, I enjoyed seeing some growing as they would in their natural environment.

There's an area containing carnivorous plants.

A tank holds butterfly cocoons.

On the top of the tank was this Owl butterfly feasting on a slice of orange. My photo really doesn't show its size, it was huge. These butterflies are usually found in rainforests and secondary forests in Mexico, Central, and South America.

As you might expect, the Jungle Experience has plenty of ponds and waterfalls.

Many of the ponds contain fish.

Some of the ponds contain Red Eared Terrapins.

Chinese Painted Quail wander around at leisure. They were introduced as the butterfly caterpillars were being eaten by spiders. They're ground eating birds and rarely fly.

There's plenty in the Jungle Experience to satisfy both plant and wildlife lovers.

The rest of our day was taken up in the park. There's a woodland walk and a park trail as well as a wildflower area. We didn't visit any of these, but would do so if we return. Instead, we gave Archie a good run on the expanse of grass. Our visit coincided with the start of the good weather and there were many families taking advantage of it. There's a great play area for children with many pieces of recently installed equipment and the Flutter-Bites Cafe, which was doing a roaring trade.

The spring bulbs were putting on a pretty display.

There's some lovely areas around the park to explore.

Manor Heath Park is great for a day out, with the added advantage that dogs can be taken along. The only downside was that dogs weren't allowed in the Jungle Experience so Mick didn't get to visit it, but we wouldn't have expected dogs to be admitted to an attraction like this anyway, so it certainly didn't spoil our visit.

Don't forget, if you haven't yet entered my giveaway, you've got until twelve noon on Sunday the 23rd of March 2014 to do so. Just leave a comment on The Cut Flower Patch post.