Skip the crowded restaurant this Valentine's season and lead your own alpaca through Itchen Valley Country Park instead â a slower, funnier, far more photogenic kind of date.
Every February the same suggestions do the rounds: a set menu, a bunch of red roses, a table booked weeks in advance next to twenty other couples having the same conversation. Hensting Alpacas offers a quieter alternative. Book a Valentine's alpaca walk and you and your other half will each lead your own halter-trained alpaca along the paths of Itchen Valley Country Park, with one of our experienced handlers walking alongside to make introductions and keep things moving.
There is something about walking a large, opinionated animal that strips the awkwardness out of a first, fifth or fiftieth date. You are both concentrating on the same gentle, faintly ridiculous task, which tends to produce more laughing than staring at a menu ever does. Alpacas are naturally calm and curious, and because you are each responsible for your own animal, the walk becomes a shared project rather than something you are just watching happen. Couples regularly tell us it is the most relaxed they have felt on a date in years.
The experience runs for around two hours in total, including a warm welcome, a safety briefing, and time to meet the wider herd before you set off. Our family has been walking alpacas at Itchen Valley for sixteen years, so the route is chosen to make the most of the park's quieter corners â hedgerows, open fields and glimpses of the River Itchen â while staying easy underfoot for winter walking. Sturdy boots and warm layers are all you need to bring; wellies are fine if the ground is soft.
Walks are priced from £32 per person, and because February bookings sell out earlier each year as more couples treat it as their main Valentine's plan, we would recommend booking a few weeks ahead if you can. If you would rather keep the date a surprise, a Hensting Alpacas gift voucher lets you book the actual walk together once the season arrives, and our rescheduling insurance (£4.50) covers you if a hard frost or heavy rain forces a change of date. Itchen Valley Country Park is a short drive from Southampton, Winchester and Eastleigh, and an easy one from Portsmouth, Fareham and Romsey, so there is rarely a long journey involved before the walking starts.
Plenty of couples turn the visit into a full afternoon out, following the walk with a wander around the rest of Itchen Valley Country Park or a stop at a nearby pub. However you round off the day, the walk itself is the part people remember â not the food, not the flowers, but the alpaca that took an immediate, stubborn liking to one of you and refused to walk anywhere near the other.