Now, my other half is odd. He subscribes to the "Zoo-keepers Digest" or some such newsletter. On Facebook he belongs to a group that tells him when its "World Elephant Day" or "Tiger Keeper Week". He isn't a Zoo Keeper, the closest he has come has been owning a cat and a dog. However, even an armchair Zoo Keeper like Tiddler's Daddy was most impressed by the calibre of animal at Chester Zoo.
They are often much of a muchness, and on paper Chester's directory of inhabitants didn't leap out and smack us as being anything unusual, although we were still very much looking forward to going of course. In fact, the Zoo was oozing with proper A- list animals at every turn!
Upon arrival, literally from the entrance, we could see elephants, then a rhino. Over the bridge and we saw 4 more elephants, then giraffes, a generous helping of apes, various big cats etc etc. In the past when I have visited zoos the animals have either been AWOL (clearly not really without leave though as that would be terrifying for everyone...) asleep or very forlorn looking and cramped.
Now I am no Zoo Keeper (remember, neither are you Tiddler's Dad) but at Chester the enclosures seemed spacious, well planned out and the animals therein content. All the animals we saw were awake and seemed engaged. The Park was beautiful, well landscaped and although very busy it was still a pleasure to explore and we could see everything we wanted to without being jostled by over zealous children/ grandparents or being assaulted at the ankle by a rogue pushchair.
Although we didn't try them, you can hire buggies to escape overtired legs which are more like little cars and looked like great fun. Cafes and kiosks were well dotted about and weren't a rip off (also unusual) although there were also loads of picnic areas including some inside.
I had to blog about Chester Zoo as we really were so impressed, I don't work for the Chester tourist board or anything! A great attraction, very well organised, clean and lots of fun. Better than its southern competitors in our opinion...
