July 22, 2014

Dudley Zoo

admin Family Friendly Destinations, out and about, The Great Outdoors Dudley Zoo, zoo 16 Comments

Yesterday we enjoyed another lovely day out in the sunshine.
For the first Monday of the school holidays, Rachel joined Jack and I on his nursery trip to Dudley Zoo.
Following a dodgy weekend weather-wise, we were pleasantly surprised that the forecast was sun, sun, sun.
I didn’t quite believe it, as we have been so lucky recently with our days out, so dressed myself in what I deemed appropriate – jeans, t-shirt and hoodie. I wish I had trusted my initial instincts and gone with the shorts but never mind!
We met with the other parents and children, as well as the nursery assistants and those that were due to be at the nursery on that day, in the car park of the local pub at 9.30am.
Once everyone was finally settled onto the two coaches we set off.
The journey was fairly uneventful and we arrived there in pretty good time.
On arrival we all signed in together and then went our separate ways.
Dudley Zoo is built into the hillside where the old castle was. Not much of the original castle remains but the castle keep is there and some of the walls and rooms remain.
So Rachel, Jack and I headed straight up the hill, stopping to look at some of the animals on the way and then we climbed to the top of the castle keep.
The kids loved looking down at the view – I was a bit more terrified.
After climbing back down the spiral stone staircase – slowly – we went to see some of the monkeys, before joining up again with the rest of the group for our picnic lunch.
Next we had a look around some of the other animal enclosures. We walked through the Lemur trail and got up close with some of them. This was great until they started to shout at each other. Boy they can make a lot of noise for such small mammals and Jack was terrified!
We found a couple of play areas, by the lion enclosure – where we saw a lioness stretched out in the shade keeping cool, and by the petting zoo.
Then I finally gave in and we made it back down the hill, past the camels, to the zoo amusements by the entrance.
Each ride had to be paid for with 1 or 2 tokens. 1 token was £1 but for £10 you could get 15.
They enjoyed a ride on the swings, a look through the crooked cottage, the bouncy slide and trampoline and then with our last 3 tokens we all went on the pirate ship.(a bit of a tight squeeze for me but the children loved it!)
We stopped for some refreshments and then waited for the little train to take us back up to the top again. Why we hadn’t done this earlier I do not know!
We had another look inside the castle grounds and found a door that led into some of the rooms and was full of displays and models of how it used to look. The children were a bit too young to totally appreciate this, but it was nice and cool compared to the outside heat!

Then we went and found the humboldt penguins and sat down and watched the Go Live! bird show. Finally as we made our way back down the hill t the entrance, we found the giraffes, tigers and brown bears.

Back down at the bottom we settled down with candy necklaces and juice and waited for the others to join us before heading home.

All in all, we had a super day out and I would definitely recommend it as there was so much to do and see for all ages – although a lot of the paths are quite steep so it is probably not really suitable to those with difficulty walking.