On May day bank holiday we decided to have a day out at Port Lympne Zoo, near Ashford Kent, which is part of the Aspinall Foundation along with Howletts near Canterbury Kent.
The Aspinall foundation is a conservation charity that is dedicated to preventing the extinction of rare and endangered species and where possible, return them to the wild and you can find out more information about them here
Port Lympne has over 760 animals across 90 species, including the spectacular spectacled bear and Kents only Giraffes.
We have been to Howletts quite a few times but I haven’t visited Port lympne for over 10 years, so was expecting a lot of change.
We arrived at Port Lympne at around 11.30am after being caught in traffic on the M20. What we didn’t consider was that as this was forecast to be the hottest May day bank holiday EVER! that most people will be heading down to the coast.
Port Lympne was well signposted and once off the motorway the journey was pretty straight forward. We parked up and walked over the little footbridge to the entrance of the park. There were some enclosures on the outside of the entrance, which is great to look at if you need to queue to get in, luckily for us there wasn’t much of a wait.
Once inside there is a shortish walk down to what they call ‘Basecamp’, this is where the Truck stop is for the safari ride. There was a very long queue for this, so we decided to get something to eat first. Unfortunately there wasn’t much choice for Chloe, who is vegan. The only thing that she could have, really was chips! Not the healthiest lunch.
After our lunch and a quick toilet stop, we joined the (very long) queue for the safari. The staff were very good and were offering sweets to the children in the queue and they were running lots of trucks to get us moving as quickly as possible. There was also a play park next to the truck stop to keep the children occupied.
Some of the park is only accessible by the safari truck, so if you choose not to queue and ride then there are quite a few animals that you will miss, including the spectacled bears and the Giraffe enclosure, Which I certainly didn’t want to miss. There is an option to get off at a different stop at the bottom of the park and then walk around to see the other animals (and the Dinosaurs!!)
The safari truck drives through the open enclosures allowing you to get very close to some of the animals. There is an Asian, South American and African area.
As I mentioned earlier, It was a very hot day, which meant a lot of the animals were hiding in the shade both on the safari and in the other areas of the park. The Giraffes, however were loving the sunshine and I think they might have been my favourite animal.
Port Lympne is spread over a large hilly area and the enclosures are large, which is fantastic for the animals, but means that you may not get to see some of the animals.
We decided to get off the truck at the bottom of the park and walk along to the Dinosaur forest, after a quick ice lolly stop.
If you have someone that loves dinosaurs then I would highly recommend that you visit the dinosaur forest. I must admit i’m not that clued up on dinosaurs, but there were a lot, all life size and all with information boards so you can learn about each one. It was lovely to walk through the forest and spot the dinosaurs in amongst the tress.
Of course we couldn’t leave before visiting the Tigers, these are Chloe’s all time favourite animal, EVER!
Overall we had a lovely day and I would definitely recommend you give Port Lympne a visit, but book online, as the ticket price is 20% cheaper than on the gate.
The view from the top is simply stunning. We also Vlogged our day, so if you wanted to check that out, click here
Love it!!
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Thank you
This is so lovely. A family making the most of their time together in the beautiful English countryside, actually talking and sharing. Quality time.
Author
It was lovely and something we try to do as often as we can.