Disclaimer
This blog entry contains safari animals, NHS-adjacent heat exhaustion, mild automotive trauma, and a child navigating a maze faster than most adults navigate an NHS printer menu. No medical advice is given. If you develop symptoms after reading, please hydrate, seek shade, and avoid entering monkey enclosures with loose trim, roof racks, parking sensors, or unrealistic optimism.
Firstly, an apology.
This Longleat Safari adventure report is delayed. Not because the monkeys stole the manuscript, although frankly that would be a believable excuse and probably still less damaging than letting them near the rear windscreen wiper. No, the delay is due to the hot British weather.
Yes. You heard correctly.
Hot. British. Weather.
A phrase that sounds like a typing error, a Met Office prank, or one of those rare astronomical events where the country collectively remembers it owns shorts, fans, and garden furniture. Temperatures apparently climbed to the sort of level usually reserved for Mediterranean holidays, badly ventilated hospital corridors, and the inside of a parked car after someone says, “I’ll only be five minutes.”
With highs over 37 degrees this week, it was not the best time to be at work, at school, or indeed alive in a building designed primarily to retain heat, damp, and emotional resignation. The NHS in 37-degree weather is essentially a slow-cooker with lanyards. Schools, meanwhile, become educational greenhouses where children are expected to absorb knowledge while gently sous-vide-ing in polyester uniform.
Fortunately, our son’s school eventually saw sense and awarded the children the German equivalent of Hitzefrei.
For the uninitiated, Hitzefrei literally means “heat-free”. It is the wonderful German concept where, when the classroom becomes too hot for meaningful learning, children may be sent home early. Germany has many great inventions: the printing press, the modern motorway, compound nouns that require their own postcode, and, arguably, the civilised understanding that a child cannot fully engage with fractions while slowly melting into a plastic chair.
Britain, by contrast, traditionally responds to heat by opening one window, tutting, and asking whether anyone has tried drinking water.
But before Britain briefly became a convection oven with hedgerows, it was Father’s Day weekend. As mentioned in the previous entry, Longleat Safari Park had decided that dads could enter for free. This is exactly the sort of phrase that causes fathers across the nation to suddenly develop a deep, academic interest in wildlife conservation.
Naturally, this offer produced a large number of people who did not think twice before booking. Because if there is one thing British families like more than a day out, it is a day out where one adult enters free and everyone else silently calculates how much will still be spent on food, drinks, gift shops, and emergency ice cream.
Despite living in the UK for over 20 years, I had never actually been to Longleat Safari Park. I had been to the house once, as part of a BBC programme, which is a sentence I shall leave dangling mysteriously for a future blog entry, because every household needs at least one unresolved subplot.
My wife had been before, but that was over 10 years ago, which in family-day-out chronology is basically the late Bronze Age.
Longleat itself has a proper history. The house was opened to the public in the post-war years, when stately homes realised that being beautiful, enormous, and financially ruinous was not always a sustainable business model. Then, in 1966, Longleat opened what became the first drive-through safari park outside Africa, originally famous for its lions. This was a bold idea: take the British public, put them in cars, and let them drive past animals that could absolutely remove them from the food chain if doors, windows, and common sense failed simultaneously.
Since then, it has grown into a proper wildlife attraction with conservation, breeding programmes, education, and enough animal encounters to make you question whether your normal weekend routine of sport, food shopping, and searching for missing cricket whites has perhaps been a little narrow.
We set off using the phone SatNav, which did what modern SatNavs do best: guided us along major roads, then suddenly decided that what we really needed was a scenic tour of Somerset country lanes designed for one tractor, half a cyclist, and a hedge with opinions.
However, this accidental countryside expedition had one glorious benefit. We arrived from the opposite side to most of the traffic and somehow avoided the main queue to get in.
This was either outstanding navigation, excellent strategic planning, or sheer fluke.
Given our family’s general track record with timing, I shall call it sheer fluke and move on before Google Maps sends an invoice.
With the QR code ready, we approached the ticket office, where the gentleman behind the counter gave us the lay of the land. He explained that the safari park is incredibly busy in the morning but gradually gets quieter as the day goes on.
Naturally, we thanked him for this expert advice and immediately decided to test the theory by heading straight for the safari.
Because parents do this. We receive useful information, acknowledge it, then behave as if the information was merely decorative.
To be fair, he was not wrong. The park was busy, but the queue was only about 15 minutes, which on a Father’s Day free-dads weekend is practically VIP treatment. I suspect most families want to get the safari out of the way first, then move on to the safer areas where the animals are less likely to dismantle your car and more likely to accept food pellets from a paper cup.
The safari is divided into different sections, but the most famous — or infamous — is probably the monkey enclosure.
Before you enter, the warning signs are everywhere. Keep your windows up. The park is not liable for damage. Loose car parts may be investigated. Your vehicle may leave with fewer accessories than it arrived with. It all sounds a bit exaggerated, like the sort of legal disclaimer written by someone who once watched a rhesus macaque remove a parking sensor with the confidence of a Formula 1 mechanic.
Then you enter the monkey enclosure and realise the signs are not amusing at all.
They are witness statements.
The monkeys hop onto cars, peer into windows, inspect rubber seals, test aerials, and generally behave like a highly organised criminal gang specialising in light vehicle modification. It is not vandalism in their minds. It is enrichment. They are learning, experimenting, problem-solving, and occasionally trying to turn a Ford Mondeo into a convertible.
Longleat does give you the option to bypass the monkey enclosure, which I imagine is the route for people with new cars, leased cars, company cars, or marriages they would like to preserve.
We went through.
Obviously.
Because nothing says “family bonding” like slowly driving through a primate workshop while your child finds it hilarious and the adults quietly assess every noise coming from the roof.
To be fair, we got off lightly. The worst damage was that I had to reconnect the water injector for the windscreen wipers. Compared with the sort of stories one hears — parking sensors removed, wipers stolen, trims examined, number plates deconstructed, and monkeys apparently showing more mechanical aptitude than some garages — this felt like a minor service.
The key is to drive slowly. There are monkeys everywhere, and nobody wants to injure one of the poor little primates. So the entire enclosure becomes a strange slow-motion procession of nervous drivers, delighted children, and monkeys deciding whether your vehicle deserves a full structural review.
After surviving the monkey area, we carried on through the safari. The most impressive sections for us were the lions, hyenas, and wolves.
Seeing lions close up is always impressive. Even when they are doing very little, they are doing it with authority. A sleeping lion still looks like it owns the place, has read the terms and conditions, and is prepared to escalate if necessary.
The hyenas were also fascinating. They have a reputation as slightly sinister scavengers, largely because nature gave them the laugh of someone who has just found your PIN number. But close up they are muscular, powerful, and much more impressive than their cartoon public relations department has led us to believe.
The wolves, however, were especially impressive.
We have seen wolves advertised at Paignton Zoo several times, but despite numerous visits we have never actually managed to spot them. They are either extremely good at hiding, deeply committed to privacy, or possibly running the zoo’s administrative department from a concealed woodland office.
At Longleat, we finally saw wolves properly. A whole pack. Moving, resting, watching. There is something quietly magnificent about them. They do not need to perform. They just exist as wolves, which is already more than enough. They have the sort of calm menace that says, “We know exactly where the food chain is, and you are not as high up it as your mortgage suggests.”
Once through the safari, we stopped at the African Village and the Waterhole, which is Longleat’s food, drink, and education section. This is the essential recovery zone where families assess the damage, feed the children, and decide whether the monkeys have caused any issues requiring cable ties, prayer, or a second mortgage.
After lunch, we made our way to Pets Corner, where we unexpectedly bumped into our neighbours.
This is one of those very British things. You drive to a major tourist attraction, navigate through country lanes, survive lions, hyenas, wolves, and monkeys with a mechanical engineering hobby, only to bump into people who live essentially down the road.
For the rest of the day, we spent time with them, feeding various birds and other animals while the children moved around in that strange group formation children adopt when they suddenly become a small expeditionary force.
There is something lovely about watching children experience animals up close. They ask questions, they laugh, they point out things adults have missed, and occasionally they become deeply invested in whether a particular bird has looked at them in a meaningful way.
Then came the maze.
The maze at Longleat is apparently supposed to be challenging and can take around 45 minutes. This sounded promising. A proper family challenge. A test of navigation, patience, teamwork, and whether anyone would eventually suggest cheating by following another family who looked confident.
Our son got us through in about 10 minutes.
This included himself, my wife, me, the neighbouring children, and the general emotional baggage that comes with any family entering a maze together.
Was it sheer luck? Possibly.
Was it genius? Also possible.
Was it because children often move through mazes with the irrational confidence of people who do not yet understand council tax, pension planning, or the consequences of taking the wrong exit on a motorway?
Almost certainly.
Either way, we emerged far quicker than expected, which slightly undermined the dramatic potential of the maze. I had imagined a long, tense struggle. Instead, it became a minor commute through hedges led by an eight-year-old with apparently better spatial awareness than the adults responsible for getting him through life.
After staying for the whole day — we arrived just after 10am and left around 5pm — we made our way home.
Our son was exhausted. Not just from the heat, but from the entire sensory overload of the day: monkeys on cars, lions doing lion things, wolves finally visible, birds to feed, neighbours to roam with, and a maze conquered in the time it takes most adults to decide where they parked.
It was one of those days where you can see a new experience settle into a child’s memory. Not in a grand, cinematic way, but in little fragments: the monkey on the car, the wolf pack, the maze, the animals close enough to feel real rather than theoretical. The sort of family day that becomes part of the household archive, somewhere between “remember when we went to Longleat?” and “remember when Dad nearly lost the windscreen washer?”
Once home, our neighbours came over and we all had dinner together. This is, of course, the natural conclusion to a long day out: return home exhausted, then somehow extend the day by hosting more people, because apparently adults cannot be trusted to rest sensibly.
Then we watched the football.
I initially thought England were playing that Saturday, but the editorial fact-checking department — consisting of me, a warm laptop, and one remaining functioning brain cell — has since suggested England were not actually playing on Saturday 20 June. Germany were playing Ivory Coast, which Germany won 2–1. In fairness, during a World Cup, all evenings begin to merge into one long blur of kick-off times, snacks, late nights, and someone saying, “Just one more match.”
So there we were. A full day of safari, neighbours, heat, food, football, and a child who had experienced something genuinely new.
Longleat was busy, yes. The weather was warm, yes. The monkeys were a calculated automotive risk, yes. But it was also a brilliant day out.
And as Father’s Day offers go, free dad entry is a powerful motivator. I entered free, the car left mostly intact, our son had a memorable day, and nobody was eaten by a lion.
In the current economic climate, I am calling that a successful weekend.
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