You may remember our trip to
the Longleat Estate last December where we visited Santa, got lost in a maze,
went ice skating and explored the fairy tale manor house. During that visit we also upgraded our
tickets to season passes giving us unlimited access for the following twelve
months. Now spring is upon us (or
so they tell me), the house and grounds are open once again and, as today was a
bank holiday (ie a public holiday – not what the banks have got to do with it) ,
we decided to brave the elements and set off to explore.
Longleat
Safari Park was opened in 1966 and was the first drive-through safari park outside
Africa. and was considered to be a massive breakthrough in the way in which
captive animals were kept, with the animals roaming freely and the visitors in
cages (cars).
After
driving past the extremely civilised home of the 7th Marquess of
Bath, it took us a good 15 minutes before we reached the start of the first
section of the park, the East African Reserve. Thanks to the CD tour guide provided, we knew this would be
the last watering hole for the human animal until the end of our tour so Abbey
and I hopped out not wanting to pass up such an opportunity. We also had a wander through Wallaby Wood and saw one or two
Red-necked wallabies, one of whom had a joey in her pouch.
Beyond
civilization…
Abbey
checks out the Aussie contingent
Back in the car we drove
through the first ‘exhibit’ taking in a baby Rothschild Giraffe who didn’t seem
at all bothered about the rain.
The rest of her family, along with their Zebra friends, had decided to
stick with the shelter of the shed.
The
Rothschild Giraffe is one of the most endangered giraffe subspecies with only a
few hundred members in the wild while the Grant's zebra is the smallest of six subspecies of the plains
zebra.
After a brief stop to take
in the Chilean Flamingo we entered…….Monkey
World!
We had heard tales of the
monkey enclosure and it seems that the stories of wind screen wipers being
removed and even a roof pod being opened by the dear little creatures were not
to be dismissed as urban myths.
There were plenty of warning signs but we decided to chance our luck.
We watched as the
cars stopped ahead of us began to draw some attention and soon had one or two roof
top passengers. The kids were keen
for one to climb on us but Nathan and I were not quite so keen so we kept
moving to deter any wanted guests.
The
rhesus macaque, also called the rhesus monkey, is one of the
best-known species of Old World monkeys. They shared their enclosure with the
blackbuck, an antelope species native to the Indian subcontinent that has been
classified as endangered since 2003.
It was a little odd to watch the monkeys simply wandering down the road
beside us
Exiting Monkey World unscathed we found ourselves in the Big Game Park watching Blue Wildebeest
sheltering from the weather and you couldn’t really blame them as at this point
it was very bleak indeed.
More impressive were the
Southern White Rhinos just grazing on the fields by the roadside. It seemed a little odd to be seeing
them so close and surrounded by the quintessential English countryside complete
with blue bells in the woods.
Why
did the Ostrich cross the road?
Today it was just to get to the other side.
The
Ankole-Watusi is a breed of
cattle originally native to the savannas and open grasslands of Africa. Their
horns can reach up to 8 feet from tip to tip! Definitely not to be messed with!!
And
the award for the cutest animal of the day went to this baby Bactrian camel native to the steppes
of central Asia.
The
scimitar oryx, or scimitar-Horned oryx; also known as Sahara Oryx is a species of oryx which
formerly inhabited the whole of North Africa. It has been classified as extinct in the wild.
With the resident park
elephant nowhere to be seen today, we drove on to the Deer Park and some hands on fun. As soon as we had purchased our cups of deer food a head was
through my window attempting to swallow the lot in one sitting. The park ranger advised us to move on
to another group and just ignore the gang who had taken up post at the entrance
literally ambushing new arrivals!
We found the gentler and
shyer deer more to our liking and Nathan, Abbey and I had a great time feeding the
mixture of red and fallow deer out the car window with Zac preferring his back
seat vantage point.
Hey
man, what’s with the empty palm?
After the relative freedom
of being able to be ‘up close and personal’ we then closed up tight for the
next enclosure and with good reason with four Amur or Siberian Tigers close at
hand.
Whilst the tigers were
content just to watch the passing show (us!) the male lions in the next
enclosure were keen for a much closer look!
This photo puts their immense size into perspective!
It
was just crazy watching him walk right past us!
One of the newer enclosures
of the park was the Cheetah Kingdom
and this too did not disappoint.
Whilst in the zoo you always see cheetahs just lying around, today they
were in a rather playful mood chasing each other around the grounds. Watching them break into a run was
simply amazing.
Popping
over to say hello
Apologies
for the blurred photo but it was raining and I was not about to put the window
down for a clearer shot!
And
they’re off!
Our last enclosure of the
tour was Wolf Wood whose residents
were a pack of Canadian Timber wolves.
Similar to the Cheetah’s, the wolves seemed to be enjoying the English
springtime rain and were incredibly active as we watched on from the safety of
the car.
Our trip through the
Longleat Safari park over, we returned to the civilization of the manor home
and surrounding attractions. It
was still raining so we opted for an indoor lunch trying out, and being very
pleased with, the local pizza house.
At last the rain began to ease as we made our way to the lake to embark
on boat ride to visit the estate’s Western Lowland Gorilla whose home was in
the middle of Half Mile Lake.
Perhaps
of hint at what is lurking in the depths of the lake
Nathan
proves he is smaller than a gorilla (and better looking than a turkey!)
Unfortunately, the gorilla,
who happens to be an old man at 53 years of age, had taken one look out of his
house this morning and decided to stay indoors. As his house has central heating and a colour television
(no, I am not joking) you really couldn’t blame him. Luckily, the lakes family of Californian Sea Lions were in
fine form, especially when being thrown fish by the well trained public.
At
last we were rewarded with just this small glimpse of the lake’s two common
Hippos
With the boat ride over and
the sun finally showing we made our way to the Jungle Kingdom but only after the kids showed off their long
jumping skills.
Zac
jumping as far as a Jack Rabbit
Our
little Frog, Abbey
I
just liked this statue!
More
monkey mayhem
Abbey
braves the lorikeets
Abbey once again showing her animal magnetism getting a kiss off a
Maccaw
Hands
on in the reptile room
Earning
the day’s award for bravery!
Abbey
compares the Meerkats who were literally running round our feet as they
searched for their hidden snacks
Would
you buy insurance from a face like that?
Having revisited the animals
we loved from our last trip, Abbey was keen to have a go at King Arthur’s Maze
of Mirrors before we headed home.
After successfully finding the Holy Grail and making it out of the maze
the kids convinced me to take them on one of the simulator rides on offer – big
mistake! It was now time to take a
very motion sick mother home!!
We
were not sure which child to take home (they were all noisy!!)
Looks like a fantastic day.
ReplyDeleteCan't believe that Zac would handle a snake and not feed deer!