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Sunday 31 March 2013

Family Days Out in Central Scotland - Butterfly World, Edinburgh


As Mother Nature appears to have forgotten that it's no longer supposed to be winter, and we are stuck with snow and freezing temperatures, we decided to head for warmer climates.
This did not involve a plane trip of any kind, but instead consisted of a drive across the Forth and around the A720 to Butterfly World near Edinburgh.
 Here you get to walk through a warm, humid jungle of a greenhouse, surrounded by butterflies (with quails scuttling about the floor as well), there are pools, waterfalls, benches to sit on, and everywhere you look there are butterflies.  In the photo above you'll see from Bug's face just how delighted she is with these fluttering delights, especially the one that landed on daddy's shoulder.
 Through another door you can get to a reptile room.  Both children thought the Monitor Lizard was awesome, and they loved the Pythons, and the Boa Constrictor pictured above.  There were also Bearded Dragon's, Geckos various, chameleons and other snakes including a submerged anaconda.  Through to another room and there were row upon row of tanks housing different types of tarantula, some giant millipedes, some frogs and newts, a colony of leaf-cutter ants (the colony was in one part of the room, and their food source was in another, and the ants were marching by the hundred along ropes above our heads carrying chunks of leaf back to the ranch).  As you can tell this attraction went down very well, both with me and the children.
There are animal handling sessions at 12 noon and 3pm, where you get to handle the giant millipedes, a snake and a tarantula.  The guy running it was excellent, and should definitely be on television.  We went to the noon one, but didn't stay for the whole thing, as by this time the children were hungry and tired and weren't up for handling the critters. 
More positives?  Yes, the gift shop has a wide range of critterly jungly offerings, and is reasonably priced, and just across the car park is Dobbies Garden World which has an excellent cafe.  Can't go wrong!

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