The Dragon Sanctuary

Archibald loves two things: gold and exploring. The love of gold is a trait of his species who mine into the Spine Mountains in the dragon realm in search of seams of gold. Sleeping in proximity of gold re-energises Auric Dragons. If they go too long without contact with gold, their scales dull to a grey-brown colour and they become more prone to sickness.

The Auric Dragon need for gold posed a problem for us initially. We are a small sanctuary and couldn't afford large amounts of gold to create a habitat for Archie. For a while, we did our best by letting him sleep with staff members' jewellery, but it wasn't always enough. Luckily, a local friend knew of an old rose gold mine nearby. We came to an agreement with the owner of the land that Archibald could sleep there.

He flies back to the Sanctuary every day to play with the other dragons. HIs best friend at the Sanctuary is Kara. She's a calming influence on him, but not enough to keep him out of trouble.

Archibald is very curious and loves to explore. He has to look in every room at the Sanctuary. If anyone new comes to work here, he's the first to greet them and follows them around. If he can get away with it, he climbs into their bags and their cars.

It was this habit of his that ended up with him getting shut in the boot of one of our Druid's cars and driven all the way to their home in the city. It was such a surprise when Archibald popped out and immediately ran out to explore the surrounding area. He was spotted by two children in a nearby playground. When we brought him back home we had to give him a very stern talking to about secrecy. He's been a lot more careful in his exploring since.