As many of you will know, I am also a Rainbow and Guide leader when I'm not stitching away - and I'm also now in a job share to be District Commissioner for my District too, which involves a depressing amount of unwelcome admin.
Our Region wanted everyone to get involved with a weekend of Animal Adventure activities at the end of June - with a special badge - and I ended up organising for 75 Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, plus 15 Leaders and helpers (including myself) to travel to Port Lympne for a day! It's not something I would take on by myself again in a hurry, I must admit, but it was a great day and the girls all had a lovely time! The weather was absolutely brilliant as well which was a relief, and we all got there and back safely so you can't ask for more than that with a mega day out.
I would quite like to go back to the safari park with my family I think, when Baby F is a bit older, and have a bit more time to wander round the bits I missed. It's very hilly so not ideal if you are mobility impaired, or require a buggy to be pushed around, as there are also lots of steps. You can hire little golf buggies to drive around but I think there are set routes for those.
The house is beautiful, and the gardens around the house as well, and the views!! Oh my goodness, those views out to to the sea are incredible. It was so clear, you could see for absolutely miles. We saw loads of different animals and I did take pictures but quite a lot of them include the girls so I can't share them on here. We started with the Lions and Tigers, then walked down a massive flight of steps to the little pond in the above image, before wandering off again to see the Gorillas (who had a little baby playing with a stick) and different types of monkey, and two Orangutans swinging around chasing each other with their long arms. With all of the fencing you were actually standing quite far away from them all so the photos aren't amazing I'm afraid, I should have taken my zoon camera lens with me.
You also get to go on an actual safari ride, so we packed in all of the girls (on two different safari trucks and trailers) and set off on our safari adventure! We saw wolves, bears, capybaras, rhinos, various types of deer, zebras (in the distance) wildebeest, water buffalo....
I mean, how's that for a view?! I hope these safari animals appreciate it.
I think my favourites were the giraffes, they're always so majestic looking. We had to stop for this one because it decided to stand in the road in front of us with a kind of giraffe-style Paddington hard stare but it eventually allowed us to pass and go on through.
The camels, however, are sassy creatures aren't they? Even when they aren't looking their best and are moulting all over the place they still have high sass levels. We actually had to radio for help on this one because a smaller, private safari truck in front of us got stuck when one of the camels started using the front of the vehicle as a scratching post. It didn't matter how many other trucks were queued up behind us revving their engines in a kind of passive aggressive manner, the camel wasn't moving and eventually they called a keeper to come along who banged on a bin lid to get it moving out of the way. It seems to be a regular party trick though as both of our safari truck sessions (which were staggered 30 minutes apart) experienced the same thing and got stuck with the camels and had to be rescued in a similar fashion.
Just look at that 'don't care' attitude going on there.
The macaques were hilarious, and very smelly! The Rainbows (the youngest girls in Guiding aged 4-7) in particular were fascinated by the grooming going on, especially when we told them that the macaques would eat the little bugs they were pulling from each others' fur. "Ewww, gross!"
If you get a chance to go then it is definitely good fun! Just be aware that there aren't very many toilets if you are going in a big group, and the toilet blocks themselves are quite small and spread fairly far and wide across the site. And it's a lot of walking!
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