Oof Oof's (Monkey's to you and me!!)

The weekend before last me and Tim took our 2 year old niece to the Monkey Forest at Trentham Gardens.

It's near where I'm originally from, but it wasn't there before I moved - it's such a cool place!

Our niece really likes monkeys, she takes a toy one to bed - he's been named Oof Oof by her (think of the noise that you make to try anf copy monkeys and thats how is pronounced).
Oof Oofs is also her word for all monkeys, just to confuse!

Here's the blurb from the website (because it explains it so much better than me)...

Get up close and personal at Trentham Monkey Forest set in 60 acres of beautiful Staffordshire woodland and meadows where 140 monkeys live in total freedom. You are plunged into the fascinating world of the Barbary macaques as you hear rustling in the trees, chattering in a strange language and see the monkeys crashing through branches.

The three-quarter mile winding forest path takes you through the monkeys home and gives you a great insight into this fascinating primate and how they live in their native Morocco or Algeria. Guides along the path will give you information on the monkeys and what they are getting up to and don’t miss our hourly feeding talks to see some more monkey antics!

All of the monkeys have a really large area of the forest to range in, and their only restriction is a perimeter fence.

Humans aren't allowed off the pathways, and you have to giveway to crossing monkeys!

Here are some of the monkey's...

Feeding time

Part of their woodland home

a comtemplative monkey elder 

teenagers just hanging around

Despite the blue sky in that last photo it was throwing it down with rain for most of the time we were there. We were prepared for rainy weather because its always rains in that area!!

Our niece had her croc shoes on and was loving splashing in the puddles until she stepped into a particularly muddy one and her feet got stuck. We had a change of clothes for her, but the socks were missing, so we had to make a trip to the gift store for fresh warm socks :) 

It was a really fun day, and we ended up having dinner at Frankie & Benny's - yummy Calzone for dinner, brilliant!

(I have some very sweet pictures of our niece but I've not asked her parents for permission to post them, so don't feel that its right I should share them x)