Hi
Before I get going on today's entry, I added to yesterday's blog. I photograhed the brochure for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries and added it right at the end of the Oct 17 blog. So, if you are interested, you can find out more about the galleries that I couldn't photograph.
On to today. With last Saturday's experience of the downtown being a zoo, I figured I'd head away from the city centre to The Regent's Park (or just Regent's Park or RP).
Here's the map of the park
The park measures about 1.7 km N-S and 1.8 or so km E-W and is 166 hectares (410 acres). I started at the bottom right, walked all the way to the top of RP and ended up at the bottom centre. I didn't go into the top section (Primrose Hill). The zoo is the triangular section at the upper right of the main park.
I started into the park (at "You are here") and came upon my first surprise - the park is the venue for this year's Frieze Art Fair. Scattered along the path I was taking were various statues being displayed as part of the festival; I assume they weren't permanent.
A link to Frieze: https://www.frieze.com/tags/frieze-london-2025
Here's one of the statues, with the description underneath it.
This is my favourite:
I went by six or so of these statues.
There are a large number of playing fields in the park. I ran across frisby football, a rugby team practising (line-out drills and kicking) and many soccer football games.
As I entered the zoo there was a face painting booth. There was a line-up for the booth. I did see a few faces painted around the park, but the little house apes are so quick I couldn't get a photo.
Crystal, here are some more designs for next year.
My first impression of the zoo was that there aren't a large number of big animals in it. However, those that were there had very large cages made to replicate their habitat as closely as possible.
A few photos, just a sampling of the animals:
Komodo Daragon
Lion
Some of the smaller animal displays were pretty good.
There are (at least) two Giant Stick Bugs in this enclosure.
A colourful display of tropical fish and corals
The zoo continues on the other side of the 'Outer Circle Road' which you access via a tunnel under the road. Here there is an exhibit called "Into Africa." It has Zebras and two Giraffes and this fellow, called an Okapi
The zoo actually had a number of lesser known species. Here's some: Bokiboky (a species of Mongoose), Golden-Headed Lion Tamarin (a monkey), and a large number of marsupials and insects. And there were lots of Otters and Penguins that were really popular with the younger zoo-goers.
One more section to the zoo, Monkey Valley, which you access by a bridge over Regent's Canal. Here's somebody out for a Saturday cruise. An untidy looking boat - very 'lived in.'
Onto Monkey Valley, but first some engineering. The enclosure shown below was originally the Snowden Aviary when built in the 1960's. It was an innovative architectural and engineering design, with large aluminum and steel tetrahedrons 'floating' in space, held in position by tension and balance cables.
It has a lot of info on the monkeys as well as the nerdy stuff for me. It's worth a look.
There are 10 Colobus Monkeys in Monkey Valley.
That will do for the London zoo. As I mentioned earlier, there are lots more species at the zoo than I have described.
On the way back to the Tube station I went through Queen Mary's Rose Garden. Even though it is well into fall, there were still flowers. May is probably spectacular.
The pond near the Rose Gardens
And I'll end with the Jubilee Gate at the entrance to the park.
Today was much more relaxing than yesterday, except for a few moment's when I picked the wrong direction of travel on the Bakerloo line. Not a big problem, as the trains run so often a mistake is only a few minutes delay.
The weather was not bad at all - no rain and a hint of sunshine occasionally.
That's it for today. No plans for tomorrow, yet.
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