I recently spent a day at Longeat, and this is a place that is easy to spend a day visiting over the holiday season. I purchased a day ticket, and this included a drive on the Winter Safari, visits to see the other animas, a boat ride, a visit to the Longleat House (Christmas at Longleat House) and the Festival of Lights (Longleat Festival of Lights: "Myths and Legends"). The first stop for the day was to drive the Winter Safari, which was recommended to complete first because it gets busy. Overall, I was one of the first in the queue, and it took a little over two hours to complete the drive, but this would take longer if it's particularly busy.
There was one part to stop off to see some other animals, and I saw all of them except for the lemurs, which were apparently still sleeping.
I actually got a great view of the lions and cheetah. I did also see the tigers, but the traffic in this area was particularly bad, and the tigers had run to the other side of the enclosure (where I'd just driven from), so I did not get to see them well, but they looked cute as they had a couple of playful cubs.
There was also a pretty large pack of wolves, but I never got them to look at me in the car as they were always looking at something else.
The only animals that I did not see on the safari were the giraffes and the elephant. However, the sunny weather (this was the first sunny day in at least a week) brought out the animals, and I was lucky to see most of them.
I loved the beautiful birds, but they would fly really close to visitors waiting for hand-outs. People could purchase food for them.
They even have koala bears!
Another favourite of mine is the red panda.
On the boat ride, we saw sea lions, gorillas, and hippo. Apparently, the gorillas never go that near to the water, so we got a good view. The gorilla below is the alpha male gorilla; apparently their heads are shaped differently when they are the alpha. The hippos also woke up and were standing by the side of the lake when passing back through.
Oh, and this island in the middle of the lake was home to some black and white monkey creatures.
Overall, it was a fun day!
I also had a look around Longleat House, which was decorated for Christmas. I visited the bakery inside the house and also to a sweet shop and a couple of other shops on the grounds. There was also plenty of places to eat a meal.
For more information and to see more about Longleat, visit my Christmas at Longleat post and my Longleat Festival of Lights post:
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