Last week was my Birthday, so I decided to spoil myself a bit, visiting Trentham Monkey Forest on Tuesday.
Trentham Monkey Forest is 60 acres of woodland with Barbary macaques free to roam around the whole area. There are 140 monkeys, the oldest being 31 years old!
The car park is rather bumpy, but once you are past that the paths are wheelchair friendly. There was one part that was a bit steep but it’s not a long stretch and you can circle round to the bottom of the slope from a different direction.
I saw my first monkeys sitting in a tree not long after getting in. Continuing on and turning around a corner there were lots more monkeys sitting around on the grass and walking around.
Monkey forest isn’t like other zoo’s or wildlife parks, there aren’t any enclosures or cages. The monkeys freely wander around you. You are told not to touch them, or get closer than 2 metres. Also it’s their forest so you should stop and let them cross the paths if they want to.
After this we spotted some baby monkeys, I wasn’t really expecting this being a cold Autumn day. They are obviously really happy and act very much like human babies, except the jumping from tree branch to tree branch, which always made me nervous they would fall!
I watched a couple of talks where they feed the monkeys, this is a good time to get some photographs as a lot of the monkeys will gather. It’s also a good time to learn about the monkeys, their habits and why conservation is so important.
Barbary Macaques are being driven from their land by deforestation and are also hunted for the illegal pet trade. Another interesting fact is that their social structure has a male chief, he earns his place not by brute force, but by making allies (something we could learn from). The leader of the females is hereditary, passed on from Mother to daughter.
We wandered round for a bit and chatted with the very friendly, and helpful, staff. Watched monkeys playing, squabbling and generally acting as they would in the wild.
It was a lovely afternoon out and well worth the price, especially with their Autumn discount.
Accessibility was also good, with staff helping if you wanted. Definitely worth a visit.
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