You seem extremely well organised, Living Coasts and Shaldon are much easier to do on the same day as both are small and neither should take more than 2 hours to get around! I don't know how easy it is to access Shaldon by public transport though as on my only visit I travelled by car.
I'm quite surprised to see Paradise Park as a possibility as it is predominantly birds, parrots as a speciality. I would've thought that Devon Wildlife Hospital (rehabilitating minks, foxes etc) or Axe Valley (tree porcupines, raccoon dogs) would've been more up your street...
Your major problem could well be the weather though, you know what trains can be like with a bit of snow on the ground!
Shaldon is 20 minutes walk from Teignmouth rail station, which is connected to Newton Abbot rail station by about 3 trains an hour, which only take 5 minutes to get there so easy for someone who prefers walking such as myself!
Paradise Park is primarily a back-up option purely because it would be something different, and has a *lot* of stuff I have never seen before. Axe is a back-up to my back-up, if the referred-to situation of everywhere north and west from Torbay being cut off by poor conditions comes to pass it's tempting to visit for my jinx of common palm civets and also raccoon dogs, but otherwise there isn't really much to lure me there.
Weather is always the unknown when it comes to booking trains in advance - I booked my trains for my journey to Hamerton months previously, so I could have ended up with a wet or icy-cold day..... instead I got a mid-March heatwave!
Shaldon is 20 minutes walk from Teignmouth rail station, which is connected to Newton Abbot rail station by about 3 trains an hour, which only take 5 minutes to get there so easy for someone who prefers walking such as myself!
Paradise Park is primarily a back-up option purely because it would be something different, and has a *lot* of stuff I have never seen before. Axe is a back-up to my back-up, if the referred-to situation of everywhere north and west from Torbay being cut off by poor conditions comes to pass it's tempting to visit for my jinx of common palm civets and also raccoon dogs, but otherwise there isn't really much to lure me there.
Well if you want some life ticks (within the UK) then Paradise Park will be great, I don't imagine it'll keep you entertained for too long though. Axe Valley would be far more preferable to me!
You won't go far wrong with Newquay though, I hope you get there and enjoy it as much as you enjoyed Hamerton.
Weather is always the unknown when it comes to booking trains in advance - I booked my trains for my journey to Hamerton months previously, so I could have ended up with a wet or icy-cold day..... instead I got a mid-March heatwave!
Weather can be a nightmare, I've had a trip to Chester cancelled because my mate didn't fancy walking around in a little bit of rain but on the other hand I got lucky last month and got great sunshine for the 3 days I had away! Here's hoping you get the same.
Well, as far as I can tell from Google Maps, the walk to Living Coasts from the rail station is only a mile, so about 20 minutes, with the same being said of Newquay Zoo and Paignton Zoo - so the only slog will be the journey to Exmoor, where I'll have to walk a mile from Barnstaple railway station to the bus station, then after getting off the bus walk another half-mile or so.
And even that is a piece of cake compared to getting a train from Darlington to Peterborough, then an hour long bus into the countryside, then a 4 mile walk to reach Hamerton!
