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August 1, 2016

Loose With Llamas in Dartmoor National Park #travel

Llamas originate from South America and are closely related to the camel. They are domestic animals, used for packing supplies. Their feet are padded, which allows them to travel easily over rocky terrain without disturbing vegetation, and they’re capable of navigating very narrow paths.

Llamas are gentle animals, and this good temperament combined with their ability to pack supplies has birthed a new type of eco-tourism tour—Llama trekking.

Llama and Hubby Looking at View

I’ve wanted to go llama trekking ever since I saw a special interest piece on our local television a couple of years ago. I was thrilled to discover they did llama trekking in Dartmoor National Park in Devon and immediately showed hubby.

“We should do this,” I said.

After discussing the tour and how to fit it in to our schedule, we duly booked. As our tour approached, I watched the weather and crossed my finger it wouldn’t rain.

There were four of us trekking plus the two owners. Each of us had a llama each plus there was one alpaca. I volunteered to be in charge of the alpaca. I mean, who can resist their adorable faces.

Llama Trek Shelley

The tour was two and a half hours long with an afternoon tea break—a Devon cream tea—at the halfway point.

Llama Start at Trek

This is the start of our tour where we met our llamas and my alpaca. We were given a quick talk then off we went.

Llama on Dartmoor

We walked up hill and down hill…

Llama Trek Dartmoor Ponies

We came across some of the other wildlife – a herd of Dartmoor ponies.

Llama and View

We took in the glorious views then stopped for a delicious afternoon tea of home made scones, jam and clotted cream with a cup of tea.

Llama Trek Shelley and Paul

The walk over (3 miles of walking), we posed with our companions and said goodbye.

Those rumors about spitting llamas…evidently, they only spit at each other and are well-behaved with humans. Our llamas were well-behaved and high with the cuteness factor.

I’m a llama trekking convert, and would happily recommend trekking to any animal lover. I can’t wait to repeat the experience!

2 Comments

  1. Mary Kirkland

    I think Llamas are so pretty. They have such expressive eyes. There were two Llamas at the petting zoo I went to about 20 years ago. They gave us a small bag of food to feed them and they seemed nice enough. But when my food rat out one of them spit on my arm. It was the most disgusting ting ever and the smell was awful. I washed my arm 5 times while I was there and still couldn’t get the smell of me. I’ll steer clear of them from now on. lol Loved your pictures though.

  2. Shelley Munro

    Ugh, that doesn’t sound nice. These ones were very well-behaved and didn’t look as if they knew how to spit at all :)