Longleat Adventure and Safari Park
Piglet was treated to an extended family day out today: A trip to Longleat Adventure and Safari Park with his parents and my dad and step-mum. Despite it only being 15 minutes from their house (and considering I lived there for a while after Uni) it seems funny that I’ve never been before and didn’t really know what it was. The clue, somewhat predictably, was in the title: it’s a safari park and adventure park based around the Elizabethan stately home that is residence to Lord Bath.
The adventure park is almost more akin to a theme park with an extensive small animals area, boat ride, miniature railway, adventure playground and little ones playground interspersed with a few small ‘rides’ (I use the term loosely, don’t come expecting rollercoasters; Piglet was only about 2 inches short of the Rocking Rhino height limit and he’s small enough to get away with shouting “penis” at men stood at the urinals. So don’t go thinking thrill seekers). Piglet only needed 5 minutes to size up the little ones play area before he’d decided he owned the place; gleefully running from tunnel to trampoline to slide and back again. And again. And again.
We turned up at the end of the last week before all school children (and teachers!) go back to school for the new academic year. So it was pretty busy but the place handled the numbers well. There were several sit-down and fast food places to eat and we were encouragingly informed on the website that “each place has a full allergen menu”. We ate lunch not long after arriving in the main restaurant area: The Chamelion Tree. (Piglet’s allergic reactions last night and my sudden onset of a stinking cold has meant we crashed spectacularly through our 8:30 house departure deadline this morning)!
On arrival I was able to quickly get my hands on an allergen menu, although our battle was already half won by the fact that they stated Gluten Free, Dairy-Free, Vegetarian and Vegan options on the main menu (bonus!). Only about four of the options on the menu came with soya – so we were free to choose from quite a range of options. There was the all too common discrepancies between the two menus but these were quickly resolved. For example, “buttered corn on the cob” was understandably not “dairy-free” on the main menu but corn on the cob was a dairy-free option on the allergen menu. The simple answer was that the butter comes seperately! We ordered a rottisery chicken with four ample sides to share and struggled to finish it (despite Piglet’s understandable collateral damage that comes with trying to eat peas from a desert spoon when you have a tiny mouth). The food was straightforward and simple but tasty.
An added bonus, although I didn’t fancy facing the queue to check about soya, was that their ice cream stall sold a dairy-free coconut ice cream. Very pleased too see that (we will influence your commercial decisions)! On the down-side, we went back to the Chamelion Tree for coffee later but this was disappointing. In hindsight we should have gone to the Orangery Cafe (or the “Orangy cafe” as one dad who passed us called it) but we didn’t know it existed.
After seeing the small animals, Piglet dominating the little ones play area and deciding we didn’t have the time (or really the inclination) to tour the house we decided to bundle all five of us into one car for the safari. I’ve never done a safari before and I’m sorry to say I chickened out of the monkey enclosure for fear that my car would be ripped apart, picturing a scene like something from a clown show at the circus. I enjoyed some of the animal enclosures a lot, the big cats in particular. I think playing the soundtrack to Jurassic Park while waiting for the gates to open to let us into the Lion enclosure certainly helped add to the atmosphere… Seeing two Siberian Tigers stroll between our car and the one in front and then seeing a lioness chase the park rangers 4×4 at high speed made it more exciting than it could have been.
It says something that Piglet managed to stay awake all the way from his far-too-early-nap (him and his mother appear to have a condition where they fall asleep at the sound of the a car ignition, irrespective of the time of day!) until we left the safari at 6:30. The short journey home was interspersed with “look, a motorbike” or “look, a bike” or “what animals did you see today?” in order to keep him awake whenever he looked like he was starting to drift off. Overall a good day with lots of entertainment, decent food and minimum hastle over allergies. I certainly hope we go again when he’s a bit older to enjoy some of the bits that he missed.
