Qype User (.
Yelp
Well where do i start, this has been one of the best days of my life. We started with a tour round the stately home which was very interesting but i cant wait to see me some animals dude. Moving swiftly on to the interesting bit, well for me anyway! ma and pa loved the history of the house but me and little bro couldn't wait for the bat cave. They had just fed the bats so they were flying round us eating their fruit in a make shift cave, i thought bats were ugly but they looked more like flying hamsters, not scary at all just fascinating and really cute. We then had a fun game of tag in the hall of mirrors, i lost when i ran into my own reflection, doh!
We moved on to pets corner, where we watched an amazing parrot show with real parrots doing cool tricks, i got to hold a snake, and my brother daniel held a tarantula, gross! They had guinea pigs, birds, badgers, lizards and bugs all of which you get to see up close.
We had an ice cream then went for a ride on the river boat. You get to feed the Sea Lions with fish and see the Silverback Gorilla that lives on the little island, apparently he has his own TV since his girlfriend died and he's too old for a new mate.
We then had a walk round the stunning gardens, and looked in the butterfly den, I've never seen such beautifully coloured butterfly's and they fly right past you because they live and breed in the den, makes a change from looking at them behind glass with a pin stuck through em!
THE MAZE, this is the most amazing maze i've ever seen, we all got totally lost, there's a tower in the middle that we were trying to get to, with no luck we were all running round in circles laughing and calling to each other. Of course Dan found his way out first followed by me then mum, dad was not impressed and one of the wardens had to give him directions to get out, we were on the floor laughing. The warden said there's an easy way to the tower and back out again, it seemed so easy and clever once he told us but i cant tell you as it'll just ruin all the fun.
And lastly on our trip to Longleat we visited the Safari park. We drove through in our car and stopped to get out to look at the giraffe's they are so tall and beautiful with big pretty eyes. For the rest of the journey we had to stay in our car and drive round slowly taking in all the wonderful sights and listening to the informative cd we were given. We saw Zebra's and drove tentatively past the huge Rhino, you feel safe though as there are wardens in Zebra painted jeeps near by ready to scare them off if they get too upset, but i think they're well and truly used to seeing cars go by. We still cant get over how huge they were. The infamous little monkeys that jump on your car as you drive through weren't scared either and no they don't trash your car, loads of them jump on and hitch a ride as far as they can go. The car in front had four on their roof they were such funny inquisitive little things. We drove through seperate enclosures each housing different animals on vast land that they could roam round on. The wolves which weren't out to play sadly were hidden away somewhere. But we saw the Tigers parading back and forth marking their territory. And the Lions were awesome! we went by and they were so close lying around licking each others fur, and 2 of them were bizarelly climbing a tree, I'd love to see the local Firemen trying to get those kitty kats down!
I know i've gone on a bit but i haven't mentioned half the amazing stuff we saw, it really is a must see for all the family, i've already decided i'm coming back to do it all again and hopefully see the wolves next time.
I also must add as an animal lover and a hater of zoo's abroad where the animals aren't well looked after. The animals at Longleat were housed in good conditions, with space and happy staff to care for them, and when we talked to them all seemed to love their jobs looking after the animals. What an absolutely marvelous place.