Thursday, October 20, 2011

Exploring our local area: Camelot Lavender Farm

We went on a homeschool excursion on Monday to the Camelot Lavender Farm.  Which is actually a bit of a misnomer as its not a lavender farm anymore.  Apparently its being renamed to Camelot Heritage Gardens and Exotic animals or something.

So, no sweeping fields of lavender anymore.  But they did have some rare and endangered breeds of animals that we could see.

Anglo-nubian goats

Feeding the goats
The one on the left is an alpaca, the one on the right (the big one) is his baby - alpaca / llama cross!

Al the alpaca

Llamas

More llamas - they've been shorn hence the scraggy look!
Not exotic - a rescue donkey - althought they did have several hinnies in another paddock (offspring of a male horse and female donkey)
There were also endangered breeds of sheep (whose names escape me) and I think they also have some endangered breeds of pigs.

And another rare breed:

The 'I don't want my photo taken' Billy  :)  Notice the lavender in the background!
We also found out that you can only eat the English lavender - the rest have camphor in them.  Most of us had to buy a lavender chocolate just to test it out :)

After the lavender place, we headed back down to the river where we went a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately this time the weather was overcast and a bit cool - didn't stop some of the kids going for a swim though!

My camera battery had died by then, so just use your imagination!

6 comments:

Suji said...

Mmmm, lavendar chocolate! Have never seen shorn alpacas or llamas before. Thankful your camera was working at the time. :)

Caz said...

lol the alpacas are hilarious looking, poor things ;)

Louise said...

those goats are so gorgeous! Have you seen the fainting goats? they fall over when you clap:
http://www.squidoo.com/faintinggoats

Kez said...

lol Louise - they're hilarious!

Libby said...

How fun. I always love going to places like this.

Anonymous said...

Have you ever been to Windsong Lavender Farm in Tahmoor. Its small but very nice people tell you all about the many varieties of lavender and the jams that are made from the berries they grow are great.

Fay