Longleat visit, Warminster, Wiltshire - July 2005
We went to visit Longleat, near Warminster Wiltshire, on what must
have been the worst day of the summer for weather! Nevertheless, we
enjoyed seeing the animals in the Safari Park and Longleat house and
gardens.
|
|

It took about 1½ hours to travel through Longleat Safari Park to see all
the wildlife including giant giraffes, meddling monkeys, zany zebras,
deer, wolves, bison, lions and tigers.
|

This Giraffe found it handy being able to stick your neck out and get food
from where other animals cannot reach. We weren't quite this close
to it, the camera zoom helped here.
|
|

Apparently the animals have right of way in Longleat Safari Park, this
Lama either doesn't have any road sense or has an attitude problem sitting
there slap bang in the middle of the road!
|

This shot's good for the 'Ahhh' factor, with mum and dad having a chat
with baby monkey - until you realise they were probably teaching him the
art of stripping things off visitors cars!
|
|

Here's a monkey doing something on the roof of that vehicle! That's
why we chose to travel through Longleat Safari Park on the bus rather than
take our car in, what, you think we're daft?
|

We could make the tiresome joke about the Camels with the hump, but you've
heard it all before so we won't. It was good to see the animals had
plenty of room to roam freely at Longleat.
|
|

It seemed a bit much, this tractor was nudging these Rhinos around the
field at Longleat, we couldn't quite make out why.
|

Deer oh dear! These Deer know where their dinner comes from.
We stopped here for quite a while to feed the Deer.
|
|

Another 'Ahhh' as the little girl in this car feeds the Deer. Mike
thought they had a good system at Longleat, not only selling the animal
feed to visitors, but also getting them to feed them as well!
|

This Lion's doing all right, with six wives to chose from. He got up
to have a stretch and wander while we watched, his ladies all became a bit
anxious that he was leaving them!
|
|

This is the impressive Longleat House which we had a look round.
There were lots of portraits of The Marquis of Bath showing his dress
sense off to a tee!
|

We went for a ride on The Longleat Railway. Belinda can be spotted
on the near right ready to jump aboard for a ride.
|
|

Here we both are then, on the Longleat train waiting for departure.
As you can see we're in our wet weather gear, such a contrast with the sun
a few weeks previously in Dorset!
|

The Longleat Railway travelled round the grounds and alongside the
lake. We didn't see any of the Seals in the lake, maybe they were
staying dry and keeping out of the rain.
|
|

A general view of the main concourse at Longleat, in the rain. They
were plenty of eating places, but Mike was disappointed to find that the
Longleat Arms pub he remembered was no more.
|
Despite the rain, we had an enjoyable visit to Longleat Safari
Park. There's plenty to see and do there, we just wished the weather
had been more conducive to explore the Hedge Maze, the Butterfly Garden
and take a cruise on the Safari Boats.
We checked out the Longleat website and found it to be an excellent
resource for potential visitors, our review and link to it, plus many
other websites, is on our UK tourist links
page. Check it out!
|