We went to Howletts wild animal park a couple of years ago and had a pretty good day out.
Howletts is a wild animal park situated in Bekesbourne, near Canterbury in Kent. It has a sister park also in Port Lympne, also in Kent.
It is a seventy acre parkland, full of wild walks, animal enclosures, picnic areas, gift shop and a restaurant. It also has a few children's play areas.
They have a good mixture of wild animals like African Elephants, Indian and Siberian tigers, lemurs, Gibbins, wolves and antelope as well as chimps and many others. They are more famous though for there Gorillas, Howletts homes around fifty gorillas and also has a breeding centre.
Ok, when you get to Howletts, you park up in the free carpark, you pay at the gate then take as long as you like to walk around the park. There is a small tractor train also that will take you around some of the park for a small fee and a free bus ride, but we preferred to walk as all of the enclosures have information boards on them about the animal and include things like where they are from, breeding habits, what they eat etc.
We enjoyed our day at Howletts, but were sometimes disappointed as we saw no animals in many of the enclosures, they were there, just to far away or hiding for us to see, this i think is because they try and preserve the animals most natural habitat as much as possible so you are only allowed to view from certain areas, disappointing for us, but good for the animals.
The gorilla enclosures were what we enjoyed best, there are loads of them, they have big enclosures that you can view from all sides, even a seating area. So you were really able to watch them well and learn something of there nature.
Howletts has a gift shop also, nice but very expensive, although you can pick up a few little bits at reasonable prices. Also they have the Pavilion restaurant, prices were not to bad but still slightly on the expensive side. Being quite a large family we tend to opt for a picnic and buy the icecreams instead. Talking of picnics, they have some great areas here for picnicking and are hot on keeping the place clean, so remember to bin that trash or take it home with you.
I am not usually a great lover of zoo's, i hate to see animals caged, but i must admit here they have good large enclosures, with plenty of privacy from our prying eyes, also Howletts do allot of research and have a good breeding record.
Howletts is open everyday apart from christmas day from 10am, closing times vary daily but around 5 or 6 pm. There are accessible for disabled visitors also and also have wheelchairs for hire. Disabled visitors also get a small reduction on admission prices.
Admission prices are Adults £11.95 and children £8.95, under five's are free. If you book on line you get a reduced rate also.
A good day out in all that takes about five hours to get around.
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