How I wish sheep would let us pet them but they are all terrified of strangers (I’m not sure how they are with their owners).
When they hear a sound, they look up from grazing and stare at the source of the sound (you). If they think you’re too dangerously close to them, they bolt.
Aww…
This was the closest I ever got to a sheep before it bolted.
An hour and a half later, Piers and I bumped into a couple of runaway sheep as we walked up a mountain road.
We had been walking all that time literally, our goal being a national park or something like that, but we never found it. Probably took a wrong turning somewhere.
It was a nice walk, nevertheless. We didn’t know what to expect and we kept getting surprised by different things to look at. Sometimes we were closed in by woods on both sides, sometimes fields lay spread out before us, and sometimes we were able to see into the distance for miles and miles.
After about an hour of walking, we decided we’d had enough. We had that same distance to walk back.
It was on our return trip that we saw the runaway sheep.
There they were, standing right in the middle of the road, looking lost.
We walked very, very slowly towards them (they were in our way, after all) and they would alternate between looking at us worriedly and walking away from us, back towards the direction they had come from.
Then we got to a spot where the road widened out into a diverging path, one leading off to more road and one leading to a dead-end gate. The sheep were walking themselves into a dead end.
Piers thought we could corner them at the gate (so I could pet them) so he tried to slyly walk around to their back while they kept a fearful eye on me.
When he had blocked off one side of them, I walked forward to herd them further towards the gate. They went right to the end.
Finding themselves cornered, they suddenly bolted right past me and disappeared down the winding road within two seconds.
Silly, cute sheep!
We continued walking.
In the same minute, we encountered two more runaway sheep!
They were trying to get into the field beside the road but the whole field was enclosed by a thin wire fence so they couldn’t get in.
As we walked, they walked. If we stopped, they stopped, always maintaining a very safe distance from us, about this far:
I had to zoom in with my camera to get visible pictures of them.
Sometimes they would bolt and we would lose sight of them until a while later.
But we’d catch up with them again.
The whole time, we were worried that we were driving them backwards, further and further from their destination, although I’m not sure they knew exactly where they were going.
But there wasn’t much we could do about it. We had to get home and there was only one way.
We continued this way for about seven minutes and then a car came from behind us. As we pressed against the side of the road to let the car go past, the sheep ran for their lives.
And that was the end of it. We didn’t see them anymore.
So, there’s our grand sheep adventure.
This happened in North Wales, near the town of Llanrwst. We were staying at a bed and breakfast called Fir Cottage, which is a lovely old-fashioned cottage run by a lovely old lady.
She was the one who gave us directions for our walk, which starts from the field next to her house.
The directions weren’t clear enough so we didn’t get to where we were supposed to but it was still a very nice walk.
Some photos of the cottage:
If I ever go back to Wales again, it would be for the sheep. They are so adorable, especially because they’re so timid! And they are literally everywhere. You can’t miss them if you go to Wales!
So, what are your thoughts on sheep? Do you like them?
