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A weekend with a difference


What an amazing weekend we've had, with such lovely memories to treasure. To be able to
experience a conservation park such as Port Lympne out of hours and see these rare and endangered animals at all times of the day without crowds of people around is a real privilege, particularly when you can scoot around the park and take private short cuts in your golf buggy - the highlight of the trip for some!


Our weekend didn't start particularly well, with the normal stress that comes with any Drinkwater trip. Glenn is not a patient man when it comes to getting 2 kids and various bits of luggage into the car, and of course it required more than one attempt before everyone definitely had everything they wanted, where they wanted it! We set off and quickly hit traffic - and so inevitably we ended up needing to stop for a comfort break (for me - rest of the family never seem to need to stop) and to feed 2 increasing snappy girls. I made the decision to take us off the route to Maidstone - hmm, not the most salubrious of places.


The first place we went into (mainly as it had a toilet) turned out to be a vegan café - ha ha not for us - but we quickly managed to find somewhere which fitted everyone's needs and it was fine - as I said it would be. Feeling slightly better we then went back the car via a fraught trip to Matalan to buy cheapo trainers - this because half way down the M3 the kids admitted they hadn't picked up their shoes as per the request and had only flip flops with them - arghhhhh!


We arrived at the Park at the perfect time, no need to hang around and we were immediately whisked away for welcome drinks to the Treehouse Hotel clubhouse, a lovely little oasis with on-tap marshmallows and a permanently burning fire pit to toast them on - cue 2 girls weekend's made.


Our tree house suite was lovely with amazing views across the Romney Mashes to the sea with the added bonus of a grazing Rhino in between. We unpacked and then set off to explore as most people were leaving. We were able to spend ages with the gorillas, I then fell in love with the Tapirs (unfortunately despite them being perfectly suited to living in the woods at the bottom of our garden we cant have one because they are endangered, shame!)


We fell asleep to the sound of the lions roaring and woke to the Howler Monkeys off in the distance. Before breakfast we toured the park, seemingly the only visitors around, to see everyone getting breakfast. We watched with hearts in our mouths the gorilla baby getting dragged around the enclosure by a slightly unpractised Mum - first baby, like all of us at the 3 month stage, still getting the hang of it - and then onto the cheetah's, tigers, wolves and more rhino. It really was just fab.

We also had brilliant weather, and to top it off we had the Olympics with gold seemingly now coming thick and fast, along with some really fantastic silvers - Jess Ennis-Hill in her come back and Max Whitlock picking up 2 gold medals in Gymnastics, not to mention the track cycling which is just electric. Seems it's not just us though. The girls got up this morning and Abi said '"Wasn't Becky James amazing?" Given this was after they had gone to bed we asked how they knew - turns out they had worked out if they lay at the right angle at the foot end of Izzy's bed they could see the living room TV - so they had watched this and all the men's sprints from there! Give them their due - they had clearly watched carefully as they gave a very detailed account of what they'd seen - lets hope its inspired them!


So we headed home today inspired by the conservation work of The Aspinall Foundation (all of which started when John Aspinall decided the monkey, tigress and 2 bears he'd acquired / rescued from the Harrods pet store in the 1950's and 60's couldn't continue living in his Mayfair maisonette!!) and inspired by the Olympics.  We also acknowledged a few home truths to bear in mind for next time:


1) Glenn has never been good at queuing or waiting, and it's not going to get better with age
2) Safari parks are magical after hours - much more so than when full of everyone else - and we should always have a golf buggy at our disposal if we visit one
3) Despite the whole family complaining in advance that they'd rather stay at home than be dragged off to these places, actually it's all worth it when we get there.


Must remember that last one in particular! Lovely, lovely weekend.








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