Swap the seafront for green Hampshire pasture. Our guided alpaca walks at Itchen Valley Country Park are around 35 minutes up the M27 from Portsmouth, and you lead your own alpaca the whole way.
Portsmouth is a city that lives with its back to the water. Most days out here point towards the sea — Southsea Common, the Hot Walls, the harbour. So when people ask us what makes an alpaca walk worth the drive north, the honest answer is contrast. Forty minutes after leaving the Guildhall roundabout you are standing in a quiet Hampshire meadow with a woolly, faintly curious animal on the end of your lead rope, and the only traffic noise is a woodpecker somewhere behind you.
We run our walks from Itchen Valley Country Park in West End, just outside Southampton. It is a straight run for Portsmouth folk: M27 westbound, off at junction 8 or 7, and you are there in roughly 35 minutes from Fratton, a little less from Cosham or Port Solent. Free parking on site, and a café for afterwards.
You are not a spectator. After a short introduction to halter and lead-rope basics, you are matched with one of our halter-trained alpacas and you walk him yourself along the woodland and meadow trails, with an experienced Hensting handler alongside the group the whole time. The whole experience runs about two hours, which sounds long until you are in it — the alpacas set an unhurried pace, there are stops, and there is a great deal of standing about taking photographs.
Our herd is over forty strong and they are genuinely individuals. Some stride out at the front and want to lead. Some prefer to hang back and inspect every bramble. Part of the fun is finding out which one you have been handed.
We have been at this sixteen years now, family-run and BAS-registered, and a good slice of our regulars come from across the Portsdown ridge. Grandparents bring grandchildren. Couples come for a first date and then again for an anniversary. It works because it is not a queue-and-look attraction — you are doing something, outdoors, together, and nobody looks at a phone for two hours unless it is to take a picture of an alpaca.
Walks run year-round and weekends fill up first, particularly through the school holidays. Book ahead, allow yourself a little extra time on the M27 if there is football at Fratton Park or a cruise ship in, and dress for a field rather than a promenade — boots or trainers you do not mind getting muddy, and a layer more than you think you need. Alpacas are unbothered by drizzle and, after ten minutes, so are most people.
All ages are welcome. Children aged 3–12 share a lead with an adult, 12–16 year olds lead their own alpaca with an adult present, and from 16 you are on your own two feet with your own animal. Accessible walks run every Wednesday from April to October, with free carer tickets.
Questions before you book? Call us on 0333 050 4012 and we will talk you through it.