00:01Hi, my name's Mark. I'm the General Manager here at Lotherton.
00:04Second year of Dragon Quest. The eggs went missing at the back end of last year and Professor
00:09Pendragon was really, really worried about what might have happened. But after the winter
00:14the eggs have reappeared and we're really, really excited for the children to come along
00:18and to find all the nests and all the eggs and crack the mythical code. We tried to do
00:23something a little bit different and it proved to be very different and very, very popular
00:27with everybody that came. In fact, it was probably one of the most popular things that we did
00:31throughout the entire year at Lotherton with people coming from far and wide. Starting
00:35at the rear of the estate we have about 12 different nests and 12 different eggs that we've
00:39discovered in the last few weeks including the resident dragon that's now resident back
00:44in Wildlife World. He's probably our largest resident in the zoo and he's quite fiery is
00:51all I'll say. So at base camp here you can do crafts, you can make a little dragon on weekends
00:56and bank holiday with face painting and this is obviously where you can come and sit down
01:00and have a nice coffee and chill out after the quest. But more importantly, graduate with
01:05your Dragonologist certificate. Lots of events go on at Lotherton all year round, lots specific
01:10to the house that have a heritage feel such as Easter in the chapel. We have an event happening
01:15in April whereby we're inviting people to come in and celebrate Easter and just ask what is Easter
01:22all about. We're going to have kids craft in the chapel in the afternoon, mug making, mug making
01:28and Josh and various other volunteers are going to be there to help us.
01:34I was looking for volunteering opportunities and this came up. I'm really interested in this
01:41sort of area of history, 12th century chapel was just really good opportunity to see what
01:46one's like and to get to know some of the history of the place. And also it's just a really
01:51nice
01:51job to just sit there quietly welcoming people as they come in, helping them to understand a bit
01:57of the history here. Yeah, it's good. Faith is hope. And so it's, we've had lots of people
02:03come in the chapel who've got quite emotional because they've been going through problems
02:08and it's a safe space. The great thing that Lotherton brings to families and young people
02:14is the ability to get some fresh air. We're 54 hectares of an estate, so we're not huge,
02:19but we certainly burn off enough energy to make the little ones sleepy when they get home
02:23on a night time. What a fantastic way to spend the family time, have lots of fun, learn,
02:28educate the children and have some really, really good fresh air of fun.
02:33Throughout the rest of the year, we have a really big Christmas event and Halloween.
02:37We're relaunching Halloween this year to do something slightly different.
02:40And we celebrate the zoo. We love you zoo week at Springbank Holiday as well,
02:43which is always very popular. Dragon Quest runs until the 19th of April during the daytime.
02:49So the base camp that you're in now is open between 10 and 4, but you can pick
02:53and graduate with your Dragonology certificate until 4.30.
