Tuesday 11 October 2011

Howlett's Wild Animal Park

Yesterday we made a surprise last minute trip out to Howlett's, which is near Canterbury, Kent.


We arrived at around 11:30am and bought passport tickets which allow us free entry for a year. These cost £39.95 for 2 adults. Gwen got in free as she is under 3. They take your photo and store it on their system so they know who the card belongs to.


We strolled around looking at the variety of monkey's, big cats, rhino's, elephants, deer, red river hogs, ant eater, gorilla's, capybara, bison and lemur's.


Gwen found the monkeys climbing and jumping hilarious. She would try to call them over to them doing the noise you use to catch a cat's attention. She'd tell me to push her closer to the fences so she could see better from her buggy too. She found the gorilla's fascinating and I'm pretty sure she was dying to get in there with them. She could have sat there all day watching them.


We had a rather lovely lunch from the restaurant. I had a cornish pasty, which was gorgeous, hubby, Gwen and my in laws, Tom and Trish, had sausage rolls with chips. 


We then visited the nearby gift shop. Gwen loved all the teddies and we bought her a podling parrot. We found a t shirt for Harvey for christmas with t-rex's on it and 2 little dinosaur skeletons for the boys for their stockings. I loved looking at all the gem stones, fossilized tree slices and the magnetic gem stones. We treated the children to little note pads and zebra pencils.


Trish, my mother in law, had fun with one of the siamese cats that live in the manor at Howlett's. She had it sitting on her lap in the gift shop while we were having a look around.


We found a lot of the animals weren't out in their enclosures or very cleverly hidden out of sight. Which was a little disappointing but that's animals for you.


It was lovely and quiet walking around as there weren't many children in the park as it was a school day.


Here's some photo's from our day out.

































Howlett's was a lot of fun. Gwen went last year but screamed most of the way round but she appreciated the animals more this time and loved walking around with us. It's a fab day out as a couple or as a family. It's easy to get to and great exercise and you don't even realise just how far you're walking when you go around the park. The passport tickets are a brilliant idea and well worth investing in. The gift shops are great for little treats for children and adults. I found a beautiful little charm bracelet and charms to clip on it. There's even a little farm shop at the entrance selling lots of yummy goodies, all very mouth watering.

If you live near Canterbury it's definitely a place to visit Howletts

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