Longleat

Date of visit - 23/08/24

We had considered going to Longleat on our way from Kent to Somerset for our break near Langport, but decided it really was somewhere that needed a full day to get the best out of it.

At first glance Longleat appears quite expensive to get into, with adult tickets north of £40 for a day entry. However, it is fair to say that if you, and your child, have the stamina, this is a full day out. Also, they do offer free carers tickets, for those accompanying a disabled person, with the usual evidence - I flashed our two Access cards at the entrance along with my digital tickets - sorted!

We had come today, primarily to do the drive through safari, and had even decided that we would do the monkey drive through, despite the dire warnings!

Before we started the safari we parked up and had a quick look around the African Village. This area has had a lot of work done on it since we last visited, around 5 years ago. The African Village acts as a sort of pit stop, before taking on the drive through. We had elected to come here first thing, but plenty of visitors do the walk round part of the zoo first, visiting the safari later. As a word of warning - Longleat say the drive through can take 2 to 3 hours, so you may want to plan your visit accordingly.

The car park at the village is largely a grey compacted slate substance, that when wet, as it was on the day we visited, from overnight rain, made your shoes, and buggy wheels and subsequently the inside of your car very dirty. You could spot the season ticket holders, as they were the ones who had brought a change of shoes to put on before they got back into their cars. Anyway, I'm jumping ahead.

There is a small, but interesting selection of animals here, with giraffes, ostriches, zebras and wildebeest all happily roaming in their large enclosure. There is a walk up enclosure of African painted dogs and also a Lemur walkthrough in this area. Of course there is always an opportunity to make some gift purchases here too.

If you arrive at the right time, 10.30 on our visit day, you can even get to feed the giraffe a branch or two of their favourite tree snack! This might be a challenge for some children - we elected not to do this, due to quite a large crowd waiting to feed and also Little One's reluctance to hold food out to animals, as we have discovered when trying to get him to feed sheep or goats elsewhere.

Having wandered around the African Village, we jumped back in our car, taking Little One's shoes off first! We joined a procession of vehicles all with the same intention, slowly driving through the first enclosure. As you go round you will see signs telling you to close your windows, or even that you can open them, at times when in an enclosure with animals that aren't going to do you harm!

The first enclosure took us close to a group of ostrich, who were largely occupied by a keeper, who was presumably in to feed them. On the previous occasion we had visited Longleat, the ostrich had come right up to our car, pecking at the windows! On this occasion, one of the big birds appeared to be more interested in having a stand off fight with the keeper, as can be seen in the video above. They might be flightless birds, but they have quite impressive "wings" when they fluff them up in defence.

The safari takes you up close to several animals, with Ankole and camels seen in the above videos. It is pot luck how close you can get to the animals, or how well you see them, but as Longleat take great pains to point out, the animals are given enclosures that allow them to have the space they need, to live "naturally" - obviously with the added addition of hundreds of cars driving round them, daily!

Monkey Mayhem

Longleat label the safari section to visit their rhesus macaques, as monkey mayhem, there is even a video on their website, showing the "damage" their mischievous monkeys can cause - although the video is clearly staged, as you aren't allowed through the enclosure with roof luggage, or for that matter, not having a driver in the car, as on the video! Anyway, they can clearly cause damage - so be warned!

We had a visit from a couple of junior members of the pack, who appeared quite happy to just jump on the bonnet and over the roof, other cars weren't so lucky, with cheeky monkeys hanging off rear bike rack bars and even on front number plates, which obviously the driver wouldn't have been aware of.

We didn't see any noticeable damage to vehicles, but there was evidence of previous visits, with bits of car trim laying around in the enclosure. On reaching the exit gates for the monkey section, there is a keeper, with a very hi-tech length of rubber hose, to coax any monkey's still clinging on to the cars, to get off!

While monkey mayhem was fun watching the monkeys clambering all over people's cars, probably the best part of the safari was the deer park. As we drove in to the enclosure there was a queue of cars, after sitting for a while we realised that the drivers were queuing to buy food to feed the deer.

By this stage Little One was getting a little tetchy in the back, with the constant stop starting, so spotting a gap in the parking area we pulled up and opened our windows - as the sign said we could!

I think Longleat could maybe do with better notification of the food for the deer, maybe even give the option to buy it before you go in, to prevent the large queue forming at the entrance. As it was, because of our individual circumstances, we had to dip out on actually feeding the deer.

As can be seen from the video, they are definitely on the look out for food, putting their heads right into your car - much to my wife's horror, as you can clearly hear! Little One was totally unfazed by the whole experience, and didn't appear to even notice when a deer popped their head in his window. Never mind, we try, that's all we can do. At least our granddaughter and I both enjoyed the experience!

Longleat, as far as I can remember back, was known for its lions - I well remember from my childhood, the Lions of Longleat being talked about. Apparently there have been lions at Longleat since 1966. While they might be billed as a star attraction, the whole big cat area was a bit of a let down. Yes, you do get to drive through enclosures with cheetahs, tigers and lions, but unfortunately, just like your pet cat, the aforementioned beasts just like to do the same as your pampered moggy - SLEEP!

We drove through Cheetah Kingdom, Tiger Territory and Lion Country, without seeing pretty much any sign of the big cats, save for the pride of lions who were dozing in the sun!

I'm not grumbling, but this final section of the safari just felt a little underwhelming - well at least I got to stroke a deer earlier!

Having finished the Safari we parked up in one of the overflow car parks to then visit the house grounds and walking zoo. The overflow car park is on compressed gravel, which should accommodate most wheels, be it pushchair or wheelchair. The ground is a little uneven in places though, so those with restricted mobility might need to proceed with caution.

Unfortunately for us Little One was now a bit fed up, and despite having sat in his seat for the last 2 hours, while on the safari, he didn't want to walk, so he took to his wheels.

Like many zoos and wildlife parks, Longleat have joined the dinosaur craze, with a dedicated section of animatronic dinosaurs, which ran to the end of September.

Little One was, apparently, now quite happy to get out of his buggy for this part of the zoo. Unlike other children who might shy away from large, bright and sometimes noisy "creatures" he positively appears to enjoy dinosaur visits. As I have said on previous occasions, he doesn't always respond in a way that is typical of someone with autism, and as parents we know what he will or won't tolerate - normally!

Having done the dinosaurs, and the Rockin' Rhino ride, which allows an adult to ride with a child, which is good as he wouldn't hold on, on his own, we headed for the Jungle Cruise, but found the queue was too long for Little One. We then tried the Longleat Railway, but again there was quite a queue, and the next train was half an hour away, again, too long for our young man. I later discovered they do have a Queue Assist Scheme, but it has to be one of the least user friendly systems going, in my opinion!

We didn't fancy the Hedge Maze either, so to finish our day off we paid a visit to the Lorikeet walk-through aviary. Fortunately we were allowed to bring Little One's buggy into the aviary. We weren't quite sure how he would react to the birds, but to be fair all they were interested in were the rather stingy pots of "nectar" we were carrying. I felt a bit like Brenda Fricker in Home Alone 2 as the birds landed on me.

I tried to entice one of the birds onto Little One's hand and for a brief moment I thought the bird was going to do it (picture 2, above), but Little One pulled his hand away at the last second. He did, for once, take notice though and actually appeared interested in the birds.

This is precisely why we do all the things we do, in the hope that some things stick.

We decided to head back to the car at this point. Having not paid for entry into the house we thought we could at least take a stroll through the grounds. It truly is a magnificent looking home, well stately home!

Talking of things sticking, when we got back to our car, we noticed we had been left a present on our trip round monkey mayhem, charming!