I enjoy writing about all sorts really. I love travel and am pregnant at the moment so expect a lot ...
I enjoy writing about all sorts really. I love travel and am pregnant at the moment so expect a lot of baby reviews to come. I also post on Dooyoo under the name Whizz11
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This past weekend I also had the opportunity to go to Chester Zoo and what a great day out we had. I haven't been to the zoo in years but my best friend moved up here a few years a ago and has a season ticket so she suggested going and I though it was a great idea.
Funnily enough Chester zoo is located in Chester in the north west of England. Chester is not a very big place and the zoo is located fairly near the centre of town so it is very easy to find and very well sign posted.
The zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and is the biggest zoo in the UK. According to their brochure hand out that you receive with your tickets, the park covers 110 acres of gardens, has 7,000 animals and over 400 different species.
When we arrived at the zoo it was nice to find that they had free parking. We went on a Sunday and it was quite busy so we had to park in the overflow car park which is basically just a field but is near to the entrance so it
was fine. The park is open daily from 10am and on this particular Sunday it closed at 6pm.
The entrance price for each adult was £13.95. However, the zoo receives no government funding as it is a registered charity (founded in 1934) and is run by the North of England Zoological Society. Therefore, when we bought our tickets we were actually asked to pay £14.95 with a £1 donation going towards their conservation fund. This is reffered to as Gift Aid and it enables the zoo to claim money back from the government as well. This was not mandatory but you did kind of feel obliged to pay it which I didn't appreciate too much, but oh well. There are discount rates if you buy a family tickets, children's tickets etc.
The thing I was very impressed with is how good the park looked. The grass was mowed perfectly, all the flower beds were overflowing with gorgeous displays and the walkways were all neat and tidy and free from litter. Even though this is an old zoo it looked very clean, modern and up to date.
My husband did have a complaint in that he thought all the animal enclosures were rather small. Now I know that there are arguments for and against zoos. One can say that it is cruel to keep wild animals caged up in small enclosures and that they are not getting a good quality of life and do not have the freedom to roam around as they would in the wild. On the other hand one could argue that they have regular access to food and that by introducing the general public to these animals they will have a great appreciation for them and maybe will go on and help with their conservation in the wild as well. In my opinion, ok, maybe the enclosures were small but all the animal looked extremely well looked after by the zoo keepers.
The zoo, like I've said above has some great exhibits and animals which you can explore for yourself so I am only going to mention a few of the highlights for me.
Their Twilight Zone Bat Cave is the largest free-flying bat cave in Europe. The cave holds three species of bat: Rodrigues fruit bat, Livingstone's fruit bat and Seba's short-tailed bat. It is also home to a various collection of other species which are freshwater fish, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, Turkish spiny mice, and blind cave fish. I was a bit nervose about going in the cave at first. It's not pitch black in their but it is fairly dark and there are bats flying about, ahhh. They tend to just hang onto the roof and don't fly about all the time but once in a while you will feel a whoosh over your head and realise it was a bat.
The monkeys were probably my favourite, including chimps and orang-utans. We were lucky enough to see feeding time of the orang-utans and they really play up to the people watching them, swinging on the ropes and playing with the kids through the glass, etc, very, very cute.
There are lots of great places to eat which is nice. We brought a picnic as they were lots of grass areas and picnic tables dotted around which were handy. There is also the African themed café Tsavo or more of a family restaurant called The Ark. We had afternoon tea in an old Victorian mansion called The Oakfield Restaurant which was lovely and picturesque and not very expensive at all, however, do get there early as they had nearly run out of cakes when we got there.
The zoo has a scheme whereby people can adopt an animal of their choice, they are also given two complimentary tickets to allow them to visit the animals.
They cater for kids very well, I don't have any myself but they offer a great range of facepainting so they can be transformed into their favourite character and they also have a Pottery painting studio which sounds like great fun!
Like I've mentioned before you can become zoo members which allows you to visit Chester and a range of other zoos across England free of charge for a year. Another friend found out that it was actually cheaper to join Chester Zoo than her local zoo so that's what she has done and now goes to her local one.
To finish I though I would just mention that you can hold your wedding at Chester Zoo. My friend looked into this last year. Apparently you have the reception at the Victorian House but it only holds about 60 people so it did not have the room for her unfortunately. After the wedding you can take your guests around and go visit some of the animals which I think would be so cool.
All in all a fantastic day out. Check out their website for more details - http://www.chesterzoo.org/
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Advantages: 7000 species, I know some tricks to get cheaper stuff, loads of really cool stuff to play with! Disadvantages: very pricey, lot of walking, limited scooter availability
lizrow 28.08.2005 (28.08.2005)
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