Family Day Out - Saturday 30th

Had a nice long lay in until 10am today and got up slowly and washed for the day. I then finished re-arranging my room and tidying it up. Me, Ben, Mum, Dad and Mark all hit the road to the Lion and Rhino reserve which was about an hour away. We got there around 2pm and had some lunch. I had the Rhino Club which was amazing! It had chicken in mayo, bacon, and cheese lettuce and tomatoe and was then toasted, served with chips. We also had Hunters Gold cider which was really nice, having had the normal hunters the night before which was also really good. We then had a look around some of the enclosures and saw some animals in some cages which was ok. But then we went to the animal creche..... this was something different. You could pay to go into the cages with the animals. But they weren't just a few little animals, they were lions, tigers, cheetahs that weren't train animals either. So we started off by going to see the baby tigers which was nice and had a little play with them, Ben got clawed a few times and I started to play football with one of the tigers, but it soon lost interest in the ball and was more interest in my foot, and decided to go for that and grabbed my leg with his paws and wrapped his mouth around my ankle and wouldn't let go and was digging in fairly hard so the keeper had to come and unwrap his mouth from around me. By this time Ben had also got loads of claw marks around his wrists from playing with them. We then moved on to the lions, was just about to go in to see the little lions when the lady said we should go see the bigger lions that were about 5 foot when stood on their back legs. So us being men thought why not and Mum went to see the little 3 month old cubs. On the way in Dad got a nice electric shock from the fence, should of known it was a sign of things to come. When we got in there we soon realised how big they were and how huge their paws were! But none the less we decided to stroke them and play. We just had to be careful as every so often they'd go for your hand with their mouth. The female then decided to also go for my leg and grabbed it with both paws and sunk her teeth in, and then decided that she want to use me for a game of tug and start to pull me by my skin of my leg. The keeper again had to come and remove the mouth from around my leg. We then played football with them and the one of the snuck up behind Dad and jumped on his back ripping a whole in his shirt, and cutting him aswell. Mark then decided he would get as close, as he was wearing his knew Ipswich Town shirt and didn't want to get it damaged. We then heading out of the enclosure when the same female lion that got me and Dad decide to go for Ben and bit a little bit of Bens arms away. We then headed out of the cage to meet Mum who had also managed to get bitten. When we were outside the cage the Keepers kindly informed us that it was now feeding time for the animals and thats why they were biting alot! Nice of them to tell us after! Was a good laugh though a loved every minute of it. We then headed back to the minibus and drove round the rest of the park and saw some Rhino, Springbok, Buffalo, Wilderbeast and Osterich. We came very close to the Rhinos and they had their babies as well. We then headed out of the reserve and headed home. We wern't in for long before we were back on road to Spur for dinner. Everyone went and a really great meal together and stayed for about 3 hours eating and having some good long chats. We then came home and all hit the sack as it had been a longer and eventful day.

Speak Soon

Jon x