Longleat

For my girlfriend's birthday, I decided to plan a surprise trip to go and see some lions and tigers. However, rather than going to Kenya, I decided that Longleat (as featured in the BBC's "Animal Park") would be much easier to get to.

You cannot possibly understand how big and powerful a lion is unless you get close to one. In this case, one got close to us (we were inside the car, obviously!). A large male lion also walked even closer than this, but unfortunately I was unable to get a photo.

As we made our way around the safari park, I joked that I didn't want to drive through the monkey enclosure as I didn't want them to nick my windscreen wipers. We had some monkeys sit on the car, like this adult and baby.

Unfortunately, I discovered why they get called "cheeky monkeys", as some of the monkeys were chewing away at various fixtures and fittings culled from other people's cars. And then I had another visitor, who did actually try to steal my windscreen wiper!

All in all, a great day out. It costs £20 for adults, which sounds like a reasonable amount but which I think is actually great value for money. In addition to the safari park, there are also tours of the house, pet's corner (including lots of otters - very cute but they really smell bad), an opportunity to feed sea lions, and my favourite part was walking through a bat enclosure - lots of people ducking as the bats like to tease unsuspecting humans. I could have stayed and watched the bats all day!

As for Nicola, she didn't even know where we were going until the night before (when she saw a roadsign which gave the game away), and I think that she was pleasantly surprised by my choice of birthday surprise. I do think that the deer-feeding spot was her favourite bit, although my car did need hoovering afterwards!

TIP: If you have a nice car, you might want to give the monkeys a miss. Alternatively, just keep moving - that's how I got rid of my vandal!