Introduction
We had never been to Woburn Safari Park, even though it’s nearby, because you can’t go round it without a car. But you can pay for a member of staff to give you a tour in an off-road vehicle, getting much closer to the animals than normal. As a treat for R’s birthday, we decided to splash out.
It was pretty great - you do get much closer and our guide was really knowledgable. I have to admit I am terrible at taking pictures of animals and I don’t have the equipment for it either (my real camera is 35mm equivalent, and my phone camera, while pretty decent, is still a phone camera) so what we saw with our own eyes was a lot better than these pictures!
The safari park
We began by just cruising by some rhinos, which was very cool, but they were on the other side of the car so I don’t have any photos. After that, though...
After this we entered the park’s carnivore section, where we first saw a suitably stripy looking tiger (at some distance within its own fenced enclosure) before getting closer to some other animals, starting with a wolf and some bears.
There were actually 11 bears and we saw most of them, including one sleeping high up a tree. After that, it was over to the lions, who are fed twice a week, including the day we visited.
These lions don’t have manes. We did also see a big male lion in an enclosure, with suitable mane, standing on the top of the hill; it even roared (not very loud). Anyway, lions! We drove out of the dangerous part...
There were a few more animals that I don’t have pictured, including a wild ass and some bongos. Top quality animal names there.
But there were also a lot of monkeys!
There were actually a couple of monkeys on the car at different points. The guide slowed next to a tree for the last one to obediently jump off, right before the exit of the monkey section.
That was about it for the main safari park, but to reiterate, it was really fun! Definitely much better than driving though in a normal car.
The rest of it
There is actually quite a lot more that you can walk around with smaller animals.
That’s it! We had a lovely day although getting out of the park without a car (and with no phone reception) was a bit of a trial. But we did eventually manage to get a taxi to extract us.