As I said in my earlier review about Cornwall, I enjoyed my visit to the Seal Sanctuary so much, that I have to write a separate review about it. The sanctuary is based in Gweek, which is a small place, 45 Minutes from St. Austell. It is well signposted, so easy to find or just type in TR12 6UG into your sat nav ;-) .
Why is a Sanctuary important? the seal sanctuary treats injured seals, baby seals that seem to have been abandoned. They provide awareness of the marine environment as well. Every year they rescue and rehabilitate over 30 injured or abandoned seal pups. Not all of them can be released. The adult animals you can see in the Sanctuary are ones, that wouldn't survive in the wild anymore. Adoption: The sanctuary offers it's visitors to adopt an animal, which helps, giving the animal the best chances of recovery. The adoption cost £30 for children and £50 for adults if you want to adopt one of the animals in the sanctuary (you can choose which one as well). You get a years free entry for that, a Certificate and a gift. If you want to adopt a pup, it only costs £20.
The layout: after you park on a very steep carpark, and buy your ticket for £8.50, you walk for about 10-15 Minutes through woodland. You can take a little train if you want to, but we walked. The first thing you see is the hospital. The new pups are here in 3 different pools, depending on which part of the rehabilitation they go through at the moment. When we went, there was only one pup. It was 18 kg, and should be double that at his age. It looked very, very cute. The notes next to the pool said as well, that he had wounds, but they seem to have healed very well. Next to the hospital are the grey seals. You get information about all Seals on the pool, which is very nice. It was feeding time for the convalescence pool, so we quickly moved on to there. Here you can see different types of seals. It was amazing to see the different sized next to each other. Next to them are the common seals and then the fur seals. These were my favorite, because they were rescued from shows, they did a few tricks for there food, which was very entertaining. The latest edition to the Sanctuary was the underwater walkthrough. This only opened the day we went and I really liked it, because you were so much closer to the Seals, never mind the one who farted and pooped straight infront of us... There are 2 pools with Californian and Patagonian Sea lions as well. There a few nice things for kids as well, like a playarea and the "cornish Coast experience", which is a few rocks with water, sand a few crabs running about. Kids seem to like it though. there is a cafe and picnic area as well. Well refreshed, you can continue through another walk through some woodland to the otters. They were just great. I love otters anyway and find them very funny, but these two guys were just so cute and came running towards us with there little pink noses up in the air. That is the end of the sanctuary, so you just walk back the way you came. Next to the hospital are some paddocks with Ponies and goats as well. (which can be adopted as well by the way for £25 each) It is not a huge place and we only spend 1,5 hours there, but on a nice day with a picnic planned, you could make it a great day out. And the main thing is obviously the good work they are doing. This is definitely worth a visit. The pups are born from August onwards, so that's the busiest time for them, and the best time for you to see the action. Have a look at the website as well. thanks for reading.
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Advantages: Interesting, informative,lovely seals, refreshments,lovely location, good access for people with mobility problems Disadvantages: Not sure if can access by us/train, maybe a little pricey for families, can get crowded
very helpful by (98%):
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