Our England tour - We bought a Zoo!!

Dartmoor Zoo

As you all know, since I saw the movie 'We bought a zoo', saw Benjamin Mee on the morning show and found out that the zoo was England I told Scott we had to go there. He was not impressed but organized our road trip to cater for a trip to the zoo.

It was not a very good day weather wise but we eventually made our way to Dartmoor zoo. This was also done those roads Scott hates!! I think these were even smaller than the other ones we had been on, Scott was really stressing by the time we got there haha.

The zoo was very small compared to our one but it was exciting to see the zoo. The lions and tigers were so beautiful. We were there on a day that the local college had made a replica animals for them to attack and feed off. Whilst most was cardboard it was covered in horse and alpaca hair, catnip and meat. The plan was for the lioness to pounce and 'kill' the animal and then for the lion to eat it. As with most best laid plans the lion came out and claimed the meal and the lioness had to wait.
The lion came up to the fence where I was standing and kept eyeing me and one of the girls from the college, looking back and forth for a few minutes, then roared and pounced at us through the fence, in which we both screamed and jumped back. We were both really glad of the fence lol.

Also at the lions den was Benjamin Mee himself. I got to meet him, have photos and talk to him a bit about the zoo and explain why we had come - he seemed very impressed lol. The movie has only been released in England a few days before but he had said that it has already made an impact on the number of visitors to the zoo.
Whilst it was a small zoo it was clear that the animals were all healthy and happy there. One of the volunteers we came across at the tigers was talking to one of the tigers and she was purring back. It was very cute to watch, well for me anyway not to sure about Scott.

We made our way to the education centre where we could handle some of the wildlife, of which pictures are up on FB. It seems that us Aussies are tough as Scott and I were holding anything that they offered to us, where as anyone else that was there were refusing. Now happy that we had made the effort to go we made our way to Bath.