We’ve been to Longleat before, 4 years ago after a week in Centerparcs with my parents to celebrate Davies’ fifth birthday. We had a really good time then but as the kids were just 5 and not even 3 it was always somewhere we intended re-visiting when they were a bit older. This visit came about after Marwell with Scarlett while Davies was away at Badger camp as an alternative to the classic zoo model which she had enjoyed seeing animals at but felt saddened by the ‘there for your entertainment’ aspect of, as had I, in particular the big cats. Also Davies missed out on that whole thing so it was good to have an animal encounter visit with him too. Africa Alive! has always stuck me as one of the best zoo type experiences so we may well try and get there again next year along with a visit to Chester Zoo at some point as Tarly wants to see elephants and there is a local safari style place too I want to visit next year.
So having decided to do Longleat this autumn and checked prices on the website it was well worth getting a group together for the discount given they only need 12 or more to qualify as a group. I also booked an Educational Talk as a free extra thinking if nothing else the chance to actually have some contact with one of the keepers would be good as that was another thing Scarlett and I mourned at Marwell. Numbers fluctuated a fair bit during the run up and on the actual day but we were over our 12 so all was well.
The routefinder on aa suggested it was a 2hr21min journey, Ady’s satnav claimed it was 1hr55min and so factoring in rush hour traffic we decided on 2hr45min. We actually left just after 7am (which meant satnav said we’d be there by 9.06am) which was not only Very Early Indeed and Still Dark (poor chickens, let out in the dark and put away again in the dark yesterday) but earlier than planned. This is a massive first for us. The kids and I are not great at getting anywhere on time anyway but factoring Ady into the equation usually means we’re really late for some reason. It was fortunate we were early though as the satnav started hemorrhaging time almost from the outset thanks to traffic around Chichester and Winchester. I’d had one text and then took a couple of phonecalls asking me ‘which entrance?’ which utterly confused me as a) when we went before we just sort of crossed the road from Centerparcs into the entrance that said ‘Longleat’ and b) when enquiring, booking and confirming the visit and on the booking form paperwork no mention had been made of entrances. I realised when we arrived that there were indeed two entrances – a ‘house and attractions’ one and a ‘safari’ one. We went for ‘House and Attractions’ which turned out to be wrong as the woman on the desk looked all confused and then directed us to the ‘Safari’ one instead. Various frantic text, phonecalls and talking to people’s messaging service while they were talking to mine meant we all eventually ended up at the safari entrance, except for one person who ended up meeting us inside in the end.
Two ticket booths redirection later we finally found a man at a window who was able to take our money!
Everyone paid and then the race was on to get to the Pets Corner area in time for our booked talk at 1030am. Even that was not smooth as Michelle took a diversion through the tigers and Cintha bowed to the demand of her children and went straight for the safari, Ady went to get his hat but took ages coming back again (he was forgiven when he appeared having been delayed due to buying me a cup of tea :)). Fortunately the man doing the talk was also running late so Michelle and Chloe didn’t miss much in the end. It was really good, I’m really glad I booked it.
It was run by Jon, who we actually bumped into several more times during the day (he was driving the boat when we did the safari boat trip and was doing more animal handling later in the day too). He has been on telly several times on Animal Park (I know because I asked him, rather than because I recognised him ;)) and was excellent at tailoring his talk to his audience. We’d asked for Conservation which he did talk briefly about but got sidetracked by chatting to us about what animals we’d eaten (kangaroo, crocodile, venison were amoung the more exotic ones mentioned, mostly by young Ernest ;)) and then laughing and saying ‘we’re supposed to be talking about saving animals rather than eating them!’. I think everyone there (adults included) learnt something about animals though which was great. He had a parrot which kissed all the kids’ cheeks, said ‘hello’ to us and was then taken off. Next was a guinea pig, followed by more interesting stuff – first a couple of pancake tortoises, one of which delighted us all by weeing :lol:,
then out came the royal pythons. Very beautiful, I butted in and had a hold too :).
Next came out Rosie, a Chilean Rose Tarantula (always going to be a winner with Chilean Rose in her name really ;)) who had only last week shed her skin so was all bright pink. I also had a hold of her too, as did Ady. Holding a snake and a tarantula was definitely one of my highlights of the day :).
I was really proud of all the kids with us for either having a go even if they were a bit nervous, or being really sensible about stepping out of doing it if they were not keen and not making a silly fuss or being hysterical – a real difference to that sort of thing done with schooled groups I’ve seen. I was also really impressed with Jon for ensuring that any spare people who wandered over and tried to get in on the session were politely ignored and not invited to join in until they realised it was an organised talk and wandered away again.
Finally we were introduced to a barn owl and the children all had a turn at wearing the glove and having her fly to land on their arm lured by various day old chick body parts. There was possibly more interest in the chick bits than the owl but it was very cool. She also very obligingly produced an owl pellet for him to hold up and talk about and did some silent flying over our heads.
My favourite questions from the kids, scattered in between more sensible ones about life expectancy, habitat, eating habits and so on was ‘is there only one Longleat?’ and in response to Jon telling us that spiders were very good climbers ‘could this one climb a mountain?’ which wasn’t quite what he’d meant 😆
We arranged to meet back up with Alison and Michelle for lunch and then we headed off. Davies was really keen to do the maze having remembered it from before so we went off to do that. I was less enthusiastic as it is just a load of hedges after all and I was conscious we were likely to run out of time to do everything, Ady was less enthusiastic as he must be mildly claustrophobic and hates mazes saying they have nightmare qualities so we did it at speed. The kids took turns at leading us with three direction choices each before swapping over and we pretty much ran round the whole thing. We were starting to get fed up when some people from the middle hailed us and gave us directions from above to find our way to the middle. We took a quick self timer, all red faced and puffing and persuaded the kids to go for the quick exit option out again.
at least Davies and I managed to look at the camera!
I persuaded everyone we should do the safari boat next as if we only managed that and the safari drive I’d feel we’d got our moneys worth so we headed for that. We narrowly missed a boat so spent some time on the ‘how long can you jump?’ bit which had so entertained my Dad last time we’d been. He had been approaching 70 and as he still does now had the occassional bout of ‘I’ve still got it-ness’ and insisted on spending ages on the long jump acting like a little boy. He doesn’t have crazy moments very often but when he does they always stick in my mind and make me smile to remember them:
Kids have changed a bit since then too!
We queued for the safari boat and saw Alison and Michelle coming off. The boat was really noisy and I struggled to hear the commentary but enjoyed seeing the sealions and hippo (only one of the pair was visible and that was just a bump of bum in the water) and gorilla on his island. The kids both had a pot of fish to feed the sealions which they enjoyed.
Then we headed back to Adventure Castle (playground area) for lunch. Some woosie people ate lunch in their car but we braved the cold and ate our picnic at a bench ;). Enjoyed a quick chat / play with the others when they came and then ever conscious of time pressure we headed off to do some more stuff. We decided to do the bits we *really* wanted to do near the house before doing the safari and then coming back for the house if we had time. We have done the house before and I suspected it would be last on the kids’ list of things so I was happy to forgoe that if needed.
We did the motion simulator; kids loved it, I thought it was nothing compared to a proper racing car ride and Ady hated it :lol:, we did the bat / mine thing which was good, I like bats :). Then off to the car for the safari.
We got the cd to listen to and decided to really take our time and spend time in each enclosure just watching the animals for a while. First is the giraffes where you can get out and watch from above putting you at the same height as them. Really enjoyed this. Ady and I said almost in unison ‘oh, they’re so graceful’ to which Davies and Scarlett said, completely in unison ‘what’s graceful?’ 😆 I loved the way they seemed to bow down to Ady :).
Back into the car and we drove round the zebras, giraffes and camels. The children and I both thought the zebras looked smaller than we remembered zebras being although it could have been a perspective next to the giraffes issue I guess.
Flamingos, pelicans and vulctures – learn that flamingos mate for life, reminded the kids a group is called a flamboyance (which wasn’t on the fact board but I already knew from Drusillas) which is one of my favourite group names, found out that vulctures have bald heads and necks so the feathers don’t get clogged up with blood from their food (eww).
More camels, various deer, antelope and cattle and a not very active rhino. We learnt white rhino is not relevant to their colour but comes from the Afrikans word for ‘wide’ in relation to their mouths. The monkey enclosure and the deer park were both closed which was a shame. I suspect Ady wouldn’t have driven through the monkeys anyway but Scarlett had seen the people feeding the deer from their car on the website and was looking forward to that. It was closed as it’s the rutting season though so we talked about that having seen it on Autumnwatch.
Finally, best til last, we drove through the lions, tigers and wolves. The tigers were quite active with three visible ones (not sure if there are more) all prowling about and stalking each other. They are my favourite animal, so very beautiful. Almost impossible to get a decent picture from behind glass with our cameras but fab to be sitting in the middle of their territory like that.
The lions were less active with one pride doing a bit of prowling about and one doing a cross between a roar and coughing up a fur ball. The second pride were more majestic and were positioned, photo opportunity style lying on tree trunks and in a big lazy heap of males at one end.
The wolves were doing plenty of roaming about but no howling sadly. Last time there had been smaller cubs there I recall which was good both for cuteness factor and in giving some perspective to the larger ones. We also got there shortly after they’d been fed last time so got to observe some pack behaviour at work which was absent this time.
That took us to about 430pm and we were all pretty tired but headed back to the house for a last quick look at the new Animal Adventure area. There was some rabbit and ferret handling going on but the keepers looked quite busy with the children already doing that so we walked through the butterfly house and spent some time in there before exiting into another handling area where me met Jon again. He had a different tarantula out but said he’d get something else as we’d already done spiders that morning. He had a couple of incredibly cute, few week old tortoises which we held and cooed over before moving onto a larger royal python to hold and various lizards to look at.
I knew we’d missed the house by then so we finished in the gift shop where Scarlett got a lion pencil and a tiger figure (she haggled the price down on the lion pencil as it only had one eye and got it for 50p instead of £2) and Davies chose a cuddly bat, all very modest ;). We spent some time posing infront of a big wall of animal pictures and then called it a day.
The drive home was far less trafficky than the drive there. We stopped for a McDonalds for the kids (and a coke for me and coffee for Ady, we were both caffiene deficient by then). One of the dares from the weekend was ‘at a drive thru restaurant say ‘to go’ after every item and say ‘over’ when speaking to the speaker’ so Ady had me in stitches by doing that on every item including the ketchup. 😆 This infected the kids too so we were all a bit hysterical by the time we got the food (which they’d probably spat in!). We got home about 8pm.
The kids went straight to bed, I did a fairly speedy dinner and even I was in bed before midnight.
I think Longleat is a great day out, definitely better in warmer weather but the tradeoff was having the place all but to ourselves. The talk was excellent and the awesomeness of the big cats never fails to impress me. Thanks to those who came along and allowed us to get the discounted prices :).