#CountryKids at South Lakes Safari Zoo

With big sister on her first day of secondary school little brother and I took advantage of the nice weather to head over to South Lakes Safari Zoo as we hadn't been since the recent expansions had been undertaken. There is a brand new road entrance, car park and access to the zoo:

We passed the brand new playground (no time to waste in there but it looks amazing!). Instead we found the new enclosure which had a range of animals including donkeys, zebras and (as my son named them) Bewilderbeasts:

We had purchased a bag of animal feed on arrival which we could use in the walk through worldwide safari. There are restrictions on which animals you can feed it to and my son was happiest with the little ones like the geese:

This little darling was hopefully following us around but we weren't allowed to feed it:

I plucked up the courage to feed the lady emu, the male ones were far too big and scary!

This lovely kangaroo was disappointed to discover that the bag was empty:

We came back out of the walk through enclosure and checked out through new vulture and condor aviary. Its pretty awesome walking around whilst they are flying over your head:

My son had to see whether his arm span came anywhere near that of the condor (3m). I think he has a long way to grow:

The zoo's main priority is education and conservation and there are plenty of information boards that my son found fascinating to read:

We had one very close encounter when we stopped for a snack in the picnic area. This lemur took a fancy to our cakes and I had to wrestle the box of him! Whilst a staff member went to get a water pistol to deter him he climbed up onto my shoulder... matched my daughter who had a squirrel monkey do the same to her on a school trip:

After our snack we bought a ticket for the mini railway. We had the train to ourselves as it rattled around to the other side of the zoo:

All of the carnivore enclosures have glass windows so that you can get really close the animals inside:

Its quite awe inspiring to get this close:

A trick of the light does make it look like I had put my son into the enclosure though!

Then it was time to go to the lemur feeding as I had purchased a wrist band. There were lots of people taking part in this but eventually I got my turn:

The zoo has talks throughout the day on different species. They explain how they are endangered and what the zoo are doing to help:

They are successfully breeding many endangered species including this adorable gibbon:

One of the most popular talks is the tiger one. This is partly because you get to see them get their dinner from the top of a high pole:

They are such powerful animals that they sped up the poles almost too fast to see:

I was then due to feed a giraffe for which we had to wait patiently in a long queue! My son decided he was going to take my turn for me. He was so fast I missed the photo opportunity:

On the way out I had to take one last look at the handsome Sumatran tiger who was digesting his dinner in the sun:

All in all a fabulous day out and great value at £15 for both of us.