Distancing with Alpacas

Hold Tight

Gregor had bought our grandchildren vouchers for a walk with some alpacas as a Christmas present. The problem was they had to travel 400 miles to claim their present and, with Covid interruptions, it was almost 7 months before they could rein in their present. We all went along, any excuse to get out is grabbed with glee.  On the first week since re-opening, the local Alpaca Centre was heaving and in the large barn containing 30 or so alpacas and the same number of people, there was a practical demonstration of how not to do social distancing. I retreated outside as soon as possible.

Alpacas are easy-going sociable animals and about twenty of them were sent out with children supposedly walking them on their leads. In practice, the alpacas were as desperate to get out after lockdown as people and being pack animals they trotted along dragging nervy children on the 2 metres of rope lead. It meant that parents had to take the leads and hold them by a knot only 50 centimetres from the head, an easy spitting distance for the alpacas as we found out. We walked them around a mile or so on the fertile grassland on the peat soil of Flanders Moss. 

The alpacas had just been sheared by a New Zealander so were better groomed than most of the people attending the centre whose hairstyles made them look as if they had just escaped the 1970s. Alpaca wool is the strongest of any animal with four times the insulation property of sheep wool. The owner of the centre had not been able to sell the wool because of Covid restrictions so was using it to insulate a house that he was building on the site.

As well as newly born alpacas called crias, the centre also hosts llamas, geese, owls and rabbits, providing a curious menagerie for the children. Noah's Ark it wasn't, they came in sixes and sevens and there was no group isolation. Visitors could mingle with them in a picnic field where the tables were well distanced although the nearby cafe was still closed. Family bubbles waltzed around the field in unruly formations with children and animals in trepidation of each other. We had had enough and left to visit the viewing tower on Flanders Moss. On a grey summer's day, it provided some relaxation and social distancing after the chaotic experience of the Alpaca Centre. Compared to the well-thought-out distancing arrangements in most shops we have visited, the tourist attractions and the hospitality sector will have to make far greater efforts than this to keep their customers safe.

A stroll on the Moss

Spot the offspring

Mother and Cria

An Inflation of Alpacas 

A bio-secure bubble of folk escaping lockdown

Flanders Moss- looking north