During our stay in Barrow in Furness we visited South Lakes Safari Zoo at the Southern tip of the Lake District. It’s easy to find and well sign posted from the A590 main road and only about a five minute drive from the Travelodge.
The park has a reasonably sized car park, but it’s a bit awkward as one side is filled with skips and large rubbish bins and piles of old pallets. If these were removed it would make extra parking, particularly over the summer months.
Entry to the zoo is £15.50 for an adult, one child aged 3-15 years is free if entering with a full priced adult otherwise they are £9 each. Under 3’s are free and senior citizens are £11. We paid just £15.50 for the three of us as we were able to pick up a discount voucher prior to our visit and the little is still classed as free.
If you have them, you can also use Tesco Club card vouchers towards your entry prices but you do need to exchange them prior to attending.
The park has a good selection of animals which all seem to have plenty of space and seem happy and clean. There are parts of the park that you can walk amongst the animals, allowing you to get very close to beautiful wild animals. I really like this idea but it is a little inconvenient if you have a child in a pushchair and you have to leave the pushchair outside and carry your child, change bag and any valuables.
There are a variety of shows and talks on during the day some of which include the chance to feed the animals. You do need to pay extra to do this but you can pay for a wrist band at entry that allows you a couple of feeds during your visit. You can check out the timings for the talks on posters around the park, we managed to catch the giraffe, penguin and lemur shows all of which we informative and interesting to watch.
There are plenty of seats and picnic benches to eat at if you take a packed lunch with you but if you decide to eat on site there’s a restaurant called the Maki restaurant. The restaurant itself looks fab with a huge terrace through some double doors if the weather is warm enough to eat outside. Sadly we weren’t very impressed with the food or prices. The menu implies that food is homemade and freshly cooked, my chips were oven chips and the sandwiches in the little mans packed lunch were dry. Prices were high too, with drinks costing £1.70 for a small bottle of juice. If you are visiting with a large family I would definitely recommend bringing your own food and drink.
The little man enjoyed being able to see the animals and get up quite close. The feeding platform for the giraffes were one of our favourite parts of the day. We’ve seen giraffes numerous times before but until you’re on their level it’s hard to appreciate how beautiful they actually are.
There’s a small train that runs through the park but it wasn’t on during out visit. Other than the animals there isn’t too much else in the park to do. I’d have liked to have seen a play area or at least some open space to allow children to run off some of their energy.
There’s a rather nice gift shop on site stocked with lots of things suitable for all budgets including art work and wooden toys. After much deliberation and running round the store the little man picked up two animal figures for under £5.
Overall we enjoyed our day. I’m not sure I’d have been as impressed if I’d paid £31 for entry on top of the £20 for food. We enjoyed seeing the wide variety of animals and the size of the park was good, meaning we spent a good three hours wandering round.
I love going to the zoo, penguins are my favourite animal ever. Looks like you had a fab time, I need to go back to the zoo after reading this!
Kirsty xx
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I love safari parks, and I think it's great that you got to feed some of the animals! Shame about the food but I'm glad you all had a great time otherwise! x
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We nearly went here when we were away in May. I love the variety of animals – the car park sounds a bit of a mess! x
We Bowed out of it at the last minute when we went to the lakes not long back. It actually looks worth a visit, apart from the lack of play area x
Love the photos 🙂 The zoo was one of my favourite places as a kid, still is! Giraffes are my favourite animal but I've never been on a platform before, that sounds like an amazing experience. 🙂
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My little man loves going to the zoo. We wanted to get to Whipsnade this summer but didn't make it. It looks fantastic here though may have to check it out. X
We go to the zoo almost every week, we're so lucky that we live 5 minutes from one! It's such an amazing day out x
What an amazing zoo! The one we have in Portugal are so poor and the animals look so sad that I don't even go there! But oh boy, your photos amazed me!!
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Such lovely snaps! No summer is complete without a trip to the zoo. I love how you can walk through the lemurs now x
I love the pictures. I haven't been to a zoo for years. I went to a little safari park in Scotland a few years ago. But it wasn't very good.
A trip to the zoo is always exciting and even though you've seen an animal a hundred times before, it still is exciting as the last visit. 🙂 x
I absolutely love going the zoo. We have one very close to us but we haven't been for a few years. We will have to pay a visit soon. I love your photos especially the tiger
I love wild animals there is something so majestic about a spotted leopard.