“What are you up to this weekend, Karen?”
“Me and my husband are having a weekend away. Getting a babysitter and off to walk a llama.”
“Sorry, what?”
Yeah so that was pretty much how most of my conversations went earlier this month. You see, for my birthday last year I asked to go llama trekking! My in-laws treated me to just that, but it’s only now that we’ve found time to book it in. To say I was excited is an understatement.
I first really fell in love with llamas about a year ago. I went on a press trip to London and discovered that there were brands out there that were using llama and alpaca ‘wool’ as a sustainable way to make accessories such as scarves or thick snuggly blankets for the home. Since then, seeing how funny and chilled they can be when I take my daughter to petting zoos, just made me want to give them a big squishy cuddle. A quick Google told me that you can do just that!
It turns out, you can’t take young children to walk with llamas so myself and Joe decided to take a weekend to ourselves in Yorkshire, get outdoors and just relax.
We visited Nidderdale farms, and on this occasion we decided to ‘share’ a llama. Each llama and alpaca has a really different personality and so we were matched to a walking buddy before setting off! We were paired with Bolly – the biggest llama on-site, probably on account of Joe’s huge height. He was a beautiful shaggy white, made all scruffy by his playful rolling about in the hay.
It turns out, Bolly was the Italian stud of the pack. Born in Italy intended to come over and make some seriously beautiful llama babies. Sadly, he became excitable one day, tried to hop over a wall, and damaged the goods. Alas, his stud days may be over but he always had a big grin on his face for our pictures, rubbed his big fluffy neck up to me after a hug, and was a lovely bit of company for the afternoon.
Check out the video below to take a look at how we spent the day. We also visited Brimham Rocks which I’m so excited to return to when the kids are big enough to join us. For pictures of me cuddling up to this cute fluffball, keep on scrolling!
I genuinely filled an SD card with pictures of the day so it was hard to whittle them down. These are some of my favourites though. I hope you enjoyed a sneak peak into our day off! Have you ever done it before? Will you be booking now?
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