UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions - Arundel

At the entrance to Arundel Castle on the Sunday of our weekend break we paid a pricy £12 for entry.  And we discovered they don't permit photos to be taken in the castle.  Not a promising start then!

We found the grounds of Arundel Castle somewhat disappointing, they'll probably look better later in the year when more flowers are in bloom.  No matter, time to move on and find refreshment in...

...the Tea Garden, which was closed!  Oh well, the gardens in this area weren't looking up to much either.  Arundel Castle is yet another attraction where photography isn't allowed inside; it really annoys us when you pay more than the norm at attractions and then find they don't allow photos.

This is the final bit on the way up to the Keep at the castle, a total of - well, a lot of steps!

Well, you always take a picture like this after all those steps, don't you!  Please see our UK tourist resources page for the Arundel Castle website.

From the Keep a good view could be had of approaching armies in the olden days, in our case over the Sussex downland towards the River Arun.

Here's the inner courtyard at Arundel Castle on the way down from the Keep.  This area hasn't public access, yet looked better kept than the dire castle gardens!  Best leave Arundel Castle and move...

...just down the road to the Arundel Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre.  Our first stop here after paying our £7 entrance was lunch in the airy café, then we read the informative notices to see were to go.

Getting in to the Wetlands Centre proved tortuous, this aggressive Swan was having none of it, it kept hissing and wouldn't let Belinda in!

However, she managed to sneak past it and then we followed the excellent Discovery Trail learning about all the wonderful wildfowl as we went along.  The Wetlands Centre consisted of many lakes, reedbeds and wooded areas where the wildlife can thrive in its natural habitat; despite the rain we were engrossed!

Armed with the handy wildfowl leaflet, we worked our way round and tried to spot some of the 115 different species at Arundel Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre.

From the various Hides we could watch the wildlife without bothering them.  Here we fed them some of the wildfowl feed we purchased.

This is the view from Ramsar Hide out onto the wetlands.  This Hide enables the ducks and birds to be observed with minimal disturbance.  Next we...

...took the short boat cruise round the wetlands with a guide telling us all about the species as you pass them, but unfortunately we didn't pass many.

On the wetlands cruise that Arundel Castle kept popping up in the distance.  The Arundel Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre was well worth the visit, their website is on our UK tourist resources page.  Our advice to Arundel visitors: give the castle a miss and head for the Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre instead!

Mike just couldn't resist chasing the birds
at Arundel's Wetlands Centre!
Roll on our next weekend short break!