A walk on the wild side

Llamas are beautiful and calming company, discovers Bernadette Fallon on a trip to Surrey

There’s a llama nuzzling my chin. Her beautiful brown eyes stare into mine, eyelashes I would kill for fluttering delicately. This is Truffle, she’s 16-months-old and I’m about to take her for a walk.

Or rather, I’m about to spend a few hours tempting her out of the hedges with handfuls of carrots, rattling a ‘snack box’ (containing more carrots) to tempt her along – literally, dangling a carrot in her face. Llamas love to eat, they spend 16 hours a day doing it and have three stomachs to fill.

But once she is walking, she moves along beautifully through the paths and hedgerows out the back of The Merry Harriers inn in Surrey. I just have to keep her attention away from those tempting bushes and ferns, not to mention the nettles. Yes, they eat nettles too – three stomachs to fill and all that.

Llama treks are the latest thing in the wellbeing world – a new form of meditation and a novel way to de-stress. They are gentle animals, very curious and friendly and very calming company. And they are beautiful – the sort of animals you could look at for hours in viral videos. Kittens? So over!

The Merry Harriers has ten llamas in total and offers a variety of different treks, from simple walks lasting an hour and a half to luxury champagne picnic expeditions. Prices start from £55.20 per adult and £27.60 for children.

Fi, who is leading the trek and walking with Mungo, takes people out regularly – treks run almost every day in summer – and says it’s the best job in the world. The treks are suitable for anyone over the age of eight and llamas are known to have a particularly calming effect on children with special needs or anyone suffering from anxiety. One of Fi’s regular walkers is a young child on the autistic spectrum who is greatly benefiting from his time with the llamas.

You can opt for a B&B trek – £384 for two or £425 if you stay in a shepherd’s hut – and spend the night at The Merry Harriers, with a three-course dinner in the pub. The pub is a 16th century village inn with the landlord’s names, dating back to the early 1700s, written on the walls.

There’s a blazing fire in the cosy bar, which serves local ales and beers and is very popular with the neighbours, judging by the number of people who are known by name to the bar staff on the busy Friday evening we visit. There’s a separate dining area to the side, serving hearty options like

sausages from the local butchers served with mash and green veg or chunky baked hake in crab chowder. Breakfast is all sourced locally as a blackboard on the buffet table tells me – bacon from nearby Hookley Farm, eggs from Hallgate, jams from Sunfield House and herbs from the garden. Behind the bar, another small dining area has gorgeous views of the garden and play area out the back and beyond it, the field with the llamas.

Accommodation is in a choice of garden huts, rooms over the pub or – for a bit of a treat – in one of the aforementioned shepherd’s huts, set up in a field across the road. Five huts are grouped around a fishpond with a water feature, surrounded by mature trees. If this is a shepherd’s life sign me up now for a flock and crook.

Like a little doll’s house, with Shaker-style wooden walls and floors, there are snuggly fur throws on the chairs and a wood-burning stove in the corner. The bed is surrounded by windows with views out to the pond and dressed with cosy cushions and woolly blankets. The bathroom is fully kitted out with walk-in shower and toiletries, there

Clockwise from main: one of the llamas; Bernadette Fallon feels the love; The Merry Harriers

are soft towelling robes hanging on the door (so soft my partner wishes he could ‘borrow’ his to bring home). And there are llamas everywhere – embroidered on cushions, sitting on the ledge at the end of the bed and brightening up the shelves around the little kitchen sink (which are also stocked with a kettle, teas, coffees, hot chocolates and crisps).

Wander up the road through a tree-filled landscape, past pretty cottages, and you’ll eventually come to Hambledon village green with pond, park benches and the village shop, which also doubles as the local café. Here you can buy all sorts of wonderful local goodies, including asparagus, beer, cheese, eggs, gin, honey, ice-cream, jam, maps, wine, meat, water, own brand sweets and even frozen meals. The area is picture postcard pretty – well, it is in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty after all, designated since 1958. It’s definitely a great place to take a llama for a walk. ■

Behind the bar, another dining area has gorgeous views of the garden

The Merry Harriers, Hambledon Road, Surrey GU8 4DR (www. merryharriers.com). Inn rooms from £115 per night, garden rooms £110, shepherds’ huts £195, B&B. Bernadette Fallon is a travel writer and publishes her stories on Travellingwell.net