Decided to go to Port Lympne wildlife reserve, haven't been in ages and thought it would be nice to see some animals. As I haven't been for ages and had a rough idea where it was, except I forgot about a turning which added another 20 minutes to the journey via country lanes but got there in the end. The car park is free, then you cross over the road via a footbridge to the ticket office / Souvenir shop.
The one adult ticket cost me £25, stupid me I forgot you can book online and would have been £19.99 and that includes the Safari ride. I don't think there is an option to get out of it.
I had 20 minutes to wait for the 11:20 Safari ride, so I had a coffee at the Basecamp, which is convent situated when waiting for a ride. The coffee was machine made and was £3, which is about average in these tourist magnet places.
The Bedford X Army truck arrived (sorry just being a nerd (which had 4x4)) managed to find a spot amongst the kids and parents, the woman driver then announced the safety advice, don't feed the animals, keep seated, keep body parts within the truck and where the emergency stop was, which was an unmarked button on a yellow metal plate at the front of the seating platform.
The Safari started and was quite bumpy, so taking pictures is quite tricky, especially if the animals are in the distance. We had to stop for gates to open and close, so the animals don't escape or get eaten by the other ones. We were held up by a stubborn Giraffe as it stopped in front of the Safari truck several times and refused to move, the driver couldn't give it a nudge as it would look good. She said "it will probably end up on eBay by the end of the day" So if there is a Giraffe on eBay you know where it has come from with tyre marks.
The Safari lasted about 45 minutes, it would have been shorter if not for the Giraffe. We ended up at the bottom of the hill truck stop, which means it all uphill! So I followed the crowd and made my way looking at cages, trying to spot the elusive animal. This became a bit annoying as some cages were just empty! Or the animals have escaped and no one had noticed!
I think I saw more squirrels than exotic animals! I found my way to another watering hole for humans which looked a bit expensive, so I decided to give it a miss and went to the Dinosaur forest, their version of Jurassic Park, guaranteed to see dinosaurs even if they are just fibreglass and not get eaten!
After I just followed my nose and went to see the Tapir's, I was looking forward to seeing them because on my last visit I didn't see one! After looking very carefully to spot one! Not freaking one! And just found a basic wood carving, They are very talented Tapirs in making a wooden carving which seems to of fooled the keepers! Unless they are hiding in the treetops! Can Tapir's climb trees? I continued my tour with disappointment and ended up in the monkey area.
I will say with my camera, I have to keep on switching it off to save battery power! There are lots of settings, but it eats power, I would get another battery, but I'm looking at £90! Back to the zoo, they don't like you calling it a zoo! After a while, you get frustrated as trying to spot the animal (If there is one) in a cage.
Half the time you end up taking a picture of a monkey ass! Do you think they are trying to tell you something? You can stay at the reserve (ZOO), the reviews are mixed on Trip advisor, so you will have to make your own decision! Last time there were Elephants, but no more! I guess they have all gone back to Africa or to another reserve.
You were able to go into the house on my last visit, but there are only conferences going on! And I don't think they want me going through the house snapping away! So I went to the gardens, I was happily surprised on the gardens, they also have a maze (Go in one end and come out the other end), it's not hard and took me all of five minutes walking through it. It had some nice quiet spots in the gardens, so bring a good book and a picnic!
I think it's a good day out, they just need to find the missing animals! There are no more Tapir's to smuggle out! LOL
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