Woburn Safari Park

Last weekend, we drove to the Woburn Safari Park, about an hour away from our house. Most of the park is comprised of a drive-through zoo, giving you the feeling of being on safari. The vehicles are able to drive inside the fenced areas with the animals. Of course, the predators were each in their own section!

(Above) With our park admission, we were allowed to drive through each of the sections as many times as we wished. During our first pass through the lions' area they were all sleeping. However, during our second pass, the pride decided to move closer to the fence, passing in between stopped cars. Those animals were huge-- I was certainly wondering how easy it would be for one of them to bust through our windows if they wanted to! I've never been closer to a lion before. The one in the immediate upper left was less than 5 feet away from our vehicle!

(Above) Most of the herbivores roamed free in the same general area. The elephants were in their own pen; the giraffes and zebras also had their own enclosure.

(Above) Jack and Lucas loved watching the little penguins, who were very curious and kept swimming by the window to see who was looking at them.

(Above) Of course, the petting zoo was a hit.

(Above) The animals must be pretty accustomed to vehicles coming through since none of them seemed at all curious... except for the monkeys, which jumped on top of nearly every vehicle that passed by. They were especially fond of our minivan as we had a whole bunch hanging out on top. Before we left the monkey enclosure, a park employee with a long stick had to shoosh the monkeys off of our van.

(Above) Lucas' favorite part was the mini-train, which ran through an area that had camels and some other grazers.