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!
The next part was the big cats. There were signs up saying to keep all windows and doors shut and pictures of lions and tigers attacking a man getting out of the car (cartoon) that along with the sound effects and music change on the cd and the sudden change of light due to the trees really set the experience alive for the boys. They sat down made sure everything was shut and eagerly searched out their windows. We passed the cheatahs first, who were just having a snooze, next were the lions. The male lion was huge and desperately wanted to get inside the part where a lot of females were kept, I'm not sure why they were separate but being so close to a pacing growling male lion was pretty exciting. Even if I did then have the akward question from Danny 'mummy what's those things swinging about under his tail' cue more quiet giggling as well, we were next to a lion!
The tigers were next and they were having a siesta too, not that it really mattered, tigers are my favourite animal so seeing them just feet away from us was pretty special. The final part of the safari was the wolves we only saw a few but at this point we were all pretty hungry so didn't stop too long.
We had our picnic In the car then started to wonder around the park part of the zoo. There are statues of the animals all around the park and they really were awesome to see themselves! Danny's favourite was this one of a komodo dragon!
It started to rain so we took shelter In the rainbow loorikeets enclosure. We walked around and fed them nectar, they landed right on our hands! Danny found a feather too to add to his collection. We saw some red pandas and porcupines and a rather fluffy ant eater...then headed for the train.
Once on the train we went past half mile lake and saw the pelicans. Connor loved going under the bridge too.
We then had a ride on the boat, which was so amazing! As soon as the boat started sealions were swimming alongside us barking and splashing. The man giving us the lowdown then pointed to our right showing us what looked like large boulders, turned out to be two hippos! Called spot an Sonia!! We went past nico, the oldest gorilla in Europe, enclosure and I had a little chuckle to myself as apparently he has under floor heating and likes watching cartoons on TV, but not soaps! He lived with his mate who died and due to his age he Is kept alone but seems very happy that way. He was grey all over! We then saw the younger males over the otherside of the lake who were running and chasing about. We then stopped to feed the sealions. The boys loved it so much they really didn't care that they were holding dead fish! Ha! We even had the chance to fees the 50 stone male Buster!
After the boat trip we went into ray bay and met all the sting rays and had a little walk with some rather stinky penguins!
Next was the butterfly walk through enclosure it was so warm and smelt lovely! We spotted loads flying around our heads and even saw a load of little cocoons almost ready to hatch! We wondered around the pets corner, found some truantualas and the boys held a python!
The gift shop was brilliant and we spent ages in there. Mainly because Connor couldn't decide if he wanted an aeroplane or a car...he ended up with two aeroplanes! Danny chose a cuddly ant eater which, is surprisingly cute, and named it Stevie! We even brought a tiny baby deer cuddly for baby bump!
Next they had a ride on the rocking rhinos and we found another deadly 60 Base Camp! We had to run about finding the right animals in the right zones, complete challenges and answer questions on them. We got 8/10 and the boys got deadly 60 certificates, which are in pride of place in their room, along with their poster! It was about 4:20 now and the park was closing at 5 so we made a mad dash for the bat cave.
We walked around the cave and bats were flying all around us, I really love how much you can interact with the animals at longleat think that's why it's so exciting! And bats, by the way, are incredibly cute! By now we are all starving hungry again and headed for the pizza plaza!
It was really lovely inside and the boys loved watching our pizza cook in a big stone pizza kiln(?) there was fire anyways so it was really cool! And the pizza was delicious!
The boys got comfy in the car and we sang a few songs and chatted about the day and even drive past stone henge until they had both drifted off.
We did have another 250 miles to cover before we could get them tucked up in bed! The journey back was hard. I haven't mentioned the amount of pee stops we had had to take during the day what with my tiny bladder and two little boys so that was always a little worry they would wake up and be desperate for a wee, especially when we were stuck for an hour in motorway traffic with noisy planes flying over us! We eventually made it back at 10pm and tucked the boys and their new planes and anteaters up In bed.
It was a totally brilliant day. The boys, and us, had so much fun and lots of giggles and memories made. They are already asking when we can go again! We did miss the hedge maze and visiting inside the house, but we did see all the parts we really wanted to see (I think!) I'm definitely glad we went before baby is born though as it would have been pretty hard going with a crying baby In tow to get around to see everything! Perhaps next time we will get a travel lodge and a two day pass as there is definitely plenty to do!!
Until our next adventure!
Thanks for visiting! XxxX
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