Bristol; Sunday, 20 February, 2022

Overnight the wind continued to howl around the hotel, rattling the double glazing units in the hotel, and at times accompanied by the sound of lashing rain, but by about 8am it had started to calm down a bit, and after a leisurely breakfast in the hotel I decided it was probably about OK to commit to doing something for the day.

I headed over to the station and picked up the bus that heads up into Clifton to visit Bristol Zoo.

The Zoo has been in it’s Clifton location for nearly 200 years, opening in 1836, but this was my last opportunity to visit the zoo as it was due to close at the end of 2022 and move to a much larger site on the edge of the city, and it was easy to see why as the space they have is quite small, with no option to expand. Consequently most large animals have already been moved off-site with Lions and Gorillas being the only large animals still on the site.

Despite the continuous drizzle I spent a good couple of hours wandering round the different exhibits – though a lot of the animals appeared to have decided the weather wasn’t good enough to put in an appearance and were sheltering in the dry and warm parts of their enclosures – I couldn’t really blame them!

Having looked round the zoo I walked the half mile or so over Clifton Downs to the Clifton Observatory for the views over the Clifton Suspension Bridge (albeit through a pretty hefty downpour of rain), and then took the steps down from the observatory, through the rock, to Giants Cave that opens out on the side of the Avon gorge for really impressive views of the bridge from a unique angle.

By now the weather had deteriorated quite a bit further as the tail end of Storm Eunice was being replaced by the early throws of Storm Franklin moving in bringing more high winds and heavy rain to the West Country, so I decided that it would just be wise to call it quits and head for the bus stop, and get back to the dry of the hotel.

Back in the hotel the weather continued to deteriorate to the point that I decided the best option was just to have dinner in the hotel bar, it turned out to be a very good decision as the food was some of the best hotel bar food I’ve ever had.

It also meant that I ended up having a very early night – so I did get a lot of value for money from my swapped hotel night.