Our day started at 5.30am. Well, Connor decided he was so excited and was in my bed poking me, twiddling my hair and whispering time for zoo? From 3am..cheers kid!
It's about 250 miles from us, and Craig simply wouldn't hear anything about staying in a hotel or travel lodge! It was a waste of money and we could do it in a day easy. Plus, Danny decided he couldn't bare the thought of not sleeping in his own bed so I knew this was a battle I was going to loose!
We stopped off on the way for a wee (I'm currently 25 weeks pregnant!) and a drink and to be fair to the boys they were pretty well behaved. 4.5 hours in a car is a hideously long time but they napped, had breakfast in the car, read some books and partook in a little car karaoke... Connor is pretty good at singing shut up and dance with me! And Katy perry's roar! We did get stuck in traffic on the motorways (I seriously hate motorways now) and we had all started to get a bit grumpy but then we saw the sign and we had finally arrived! We did pass longleat centre parcs too and Danny was a little annoyed we weren't going there ha!
As you drive in you drive past longleat house, which is pretty spectacular. There's a huge lion statue outside too the whole thing screamed impressive and Danny asked if that was Buckenham palace and if we could pop to see the Queen!!
The zoo keeper who was in the enclosure was really friendly and chatted about the lemars and told Danny a few of their names.
We then found the trading post and the deadly 60 Base Camp. Deadly 60 is Danny's absolute favourite thing ever. It's a kids programme hosted by Steve buckshall and he travels around the world finding all types of different animals and gives them a rating, he was recently on TV in a programme called fierce, which is the same kind of thing but he is honestly Danny's complete hero and he wants to be just like him. Connor enjoys watching too but I think, currently he would rather be lightening mcqueen or Blaze the monster truck!!
The boys found dinosaur fossils, Danny chose a velocorapters killing claw necklace and Connor a t Rex tooth. They were so excited!
The first animal we met on our safari was the girraffes and zebras again, then tapiers and flamingos!
The next part you have the option to bypass as as the signs say they will attack your car! We decided to whip off the aerial and go in! We drove around the enclosure and saw a few mummy and baby monkeys and started to wonder what all the fuss was about, until this brute came along!
He jumped on our car, showed us his butt tried chewing off the jet washers on the front of the car and after completing what I can only presume was a tap dance on the roof of the car, pulled off the back washer cover! The boys thought this whole thing was hilarious and couldnt stop giggling. Another monkey sat on the roof of the car infront scratching his butt and eating an apple, again hilarious!
Once we had escaped the very cheeky monkeys we then drove past Anne the elephant who was hiding out in her house, visited the ostriches, who walked right infront of the car and honestly seeing one up close is so different to books and TV. Their legs and feet are really prehistoric looking! Then a little further along and there's three enormous rhinos grazing next to the car, which is crazy! The camels were shedding at the time and one really did look a little funny as he was almost bald on his head minus a few old grubby man straggly comb over style bits left!
Next it was onto the deer park, there were a few heards of other deer type animals, I can't remember their names really just that they all weed and pooped a lot which the boys found very funny! The red deer enclosure had a little Hut in the middle you could buy deer food in and feed them. Craig got a bit of a shock when one decided try and join us in the car! The boys stroked and fed her too. Craig was covered in deer slobber haha!
