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I turned 25 last Saturday, so we decided to celebrate by spending the day at Longleat with Jacob and Pete’s mum. We’ve been to Longleat quite a few times as it’s not too far for us and its an absolutely great day out.
There is plenty to do as they have a drive around safari and then you can get out look around the grounds and the house, plus train rides, a boat trip, animal encounters, rides, outdoor play and plenty of food stops along the way.
We decided to start our day with the safari, where you are able to park your car and get out and see the giraffes, zebra, lemmars and wallabies. The giraffes are always one of my favourites, and they had quite a few babies! so cute!
We also walked through the leemar walkway and three of them were cuddled up on the side of the path and looked so cute! it was like they were having a little photo shoot.
After having a little walk around we got back in the car and the safari started. It was on and off rain all day, but luckily it didn’t ruin the day, the animals were all out and the monkeys especially were in a very mischievous mood as there were plenty of car ariels being ripped off the cars, ours included. oops!
One of my highlights of the day were the deer. In summer they open a little hut where you can get a cup of feed for them, open your windows up and feed them from your hands.
The rest of the safari included rhinos, elephants, lions, tigers, wolves and flamingos. An absolutely great experience, and would fully recommend plus you can go round as many times as you like if once isn’t enough for you! Our safari trip took around 2 hours, albeit it was busy but its great that there’s plenty to see and do and thats before you even get to the house!
First stop after the safari was of course lunch, shortly followed by the boat trip – again a highlight of the day! This is the point you can see the gorillas on gorilla island, as well as their gorgeous silver back Gorilla called Nico who recently celebrated his 56th birthday! Nico is the second oldest male gorilla in the world! As well as the gorillas we had a view of two hippos who were snoozing in the water and lots of sea lions swimming by us,there was also an opportunity to feed them fish over the side of the boat which they absolutely loved.
Jacob was the most excited to see the penguins, so that was the next stop. They have a little section you walk in with the penguins like a little meet and greet, although one of the penguins was not interested and instead wondered around to where we were stood trying to chase the bees that were flying by the lavender.
I love how interactive Longleat is in the sense you can walk through with certain animals including the meerkats & they have a handling section where Jacob was keen to hold a snake and told daddy he didn’t even need his help! (when he did he become so grown up!!?)
We ended our day with a train ride around the park, a ride on the rhinos (not real obviously! 😉 ) and a walk through the butterfly tent, which i’m not going to lie is not my favourite but all the beautiful flowers in there make it worth it! haha.
We had such a wonderful day and it made a great birthday. I absolutely love going but would definitely recommend going in the warmer months when the animals are all out. A fab day for the family, and already looking forward to our next visit!
