I try to surprise my mum for her birthday every year. Two years ago we visited Iceland together and I surprised her with a visit to the Blue Lagoon. Last year I took her to Amsterdam and we visited the Moco Museum where they had an exhibition on Banksy and Dali (one of my mum’s favourite artists). This year I thought it would be a perfect time to go on a bit of an wildlife/outdoorsy “adventure” together.

Brielle

I will try to keep this post short, because the photos speak for themselves.

As to how I came up with the idea – an ad for walking with alpacas randomly popped up online. I connected the dots with my visit to Peru a month prior and I decided to share my love for these little creatures with my mum.

My mum had no idea, so you should have seen her face when we rocked up on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Brielle. She was hesitantly excited when she saw the alpacas. Excited because she likes animals as much as I do and they’re beautiful & cute, hesitant because she still had no idea what we were going to do with them. The owners of the alpaca farm played along and presented her with a bunch of options of things we could be doing including shearing. Then more people started to show up and she overheard people mention a hike. I saw a sigh of relief flutter through my mum, even though she’s more adventurous than I am (if you need proof, check out my post about our glacier hike in Iceland), she doesn’t really like surprises.

Hiking with Alpacas

After hanging around for an hour or so with a cup of coffee, it was time to start our walk. Every two people were given one alpaca. I have to say it’s hilarious to have such a stubborn little animal on a leash.

Most of the hike revolved around us trying to sort out the knots the alpacas created while walking criss cross through the herd. Alpacas are herd animals, so they have their preferences as to where they would like to walk. You can’t persuade an alpaca who likes to lead to walk in the back. Also when an alpaca wants to eat, it wants to eat.

Just surrender yourself to untying knots and following your alpaca around with a loose leash to make them comfortable. It’s clear alpacas are not leash trained, but it’s a great way for them to enjoy the outdoors without the danger of getting hit by cars. In Peru alpacas are walked as well, but often the landscape is much more vast and they can walk a bit more freely.

Don’t imagine you’d be cuddling with them, because they tolerate petting for a few seconds but not more.

Trying to take photos with them is also a hilarious feat.

Conclusion

My mum and I visited the Alpaca World Brielle, because I liked the fact that it would be a guided historical tour of Brielle; a city I had only briefly visited before.

Although I have to say that most of our attention went to untangling the leashes.

The farm is well-kept and the family who owns it is incredibly friendly. They are doing the hikes on the side (only in the weekends), because their main interest lies in breeding pure and prize winning alpacas. Now, I’m going to have to start thinking how to surprise my mum next year!