We love taking our grandson out and about. At 19 months he’s so inquisitive (and energetic!) so when we had him for the day a few weeks ago we decided to take him to Kirkley Hall Zoo in Ponteland, Northumberland. Ashton (our grandson) loves watching animals on television so we couldn’t wait for him to see some in real life.
Kirkley Hall Zoo is a fairly small zoo, it doesn’t have lions, tigers and elephants but it does have lemurs, monkeys and meercats so we knew there would be enough to keep him entertained. It’s £6.95 for adult admission and children under 2 go free. We packed a picnic to take with us so it wasn’t going to be an expensive day out.
The visit got off to a shaky start when we had an encounter with a peacock. At first we were looking at the peacocks in an enclosure and Ashton was quite fascinated by them doing his usual ‘what’s that?’. Then we bumped into a couple of them just wandering around the path in front of us, which was still fine, they weren’t bothering anyone, just strutting about really. At the time granddad was carrying Ashton, which was just as well. All of a sudden there was this very loud screech and our little grandson got the fright of his life. Turned out there was a peacock on the fence behind him and I think it was just trying to attract the attention of the other two peacocks but unfortunately Ashton got very upset.
After we’d calmed him down and dried his tears we headed for the one of the Daily Encounters advertised on the leaflet we were handed as we came in. Kirkley Hall Zoo offer a range of these throughout the day where you can learn more about the animals from a keeper. Some of them are more suited to older children, such as the Lemur Feed & Talk, but ‘Meet the Rabbits and Guinea Pigs’ sounded just right for a toddler.
And he absolutely loved it. Although there was a talk going on which he obviously didn’t understand, the keeper had a rabbit out for the children to stroke. There was only one other child there at the time and he was probably about 8 so was asking lots of questions. Ashton stood on a little step to stroke the rabbit and the look on his little face was priceless. He was so chuffed with himself.
After that he was a happy toddler. He greeted each animal we saw with a ‘what’s that’, pointing at them and every now and then he’d say ‘wow’.
There’s quite a lot of small animals at Kirkley Hall Zoo, so as well as being fascinated by lemurs, monkeys and meerkats they also have skunks, wallabies donkeys, birds and a well stocked aquarium. All of the animal enclosures have plaques where you can read more info about them which is excellent for older children. There’s also a Discovery Room where you can go and chat to the keepers and meet some of the reptiles but we decided to leave that till Ashton was a bit older.
Just as a side note we were standing watching some of the tiny monkeys when a family walked in and I heard the mother say ‘Oh they’re horrible’. I was quite shocked at her telling her children that an animal was horrible!
We had our picnic in the play area where there are plenty of picnic tables with a little climbing area and slide (which is okay for toddlers as long as you stick close to them). There is a cafe and food kiosk at Kirkley Hall Zoo but I always think it’s so much nicer to take a picnic if you can. There was almost another incident with a peacock who decided to stroll into the play area for a look around but I think by then Ashton had got over his fright and didn’t take much notice of it, he carried on munching his piece of pineapple.
We spent about 4 hours at Kirkley Hall Zoo and had a lovely time. As I mentioned earlier it’s not a large zoo so it’s easy to get around it but we did take the pram just in case little legs got tired. It’s definitely a good morning or afternoon out for toddlers but you could certainly spend a whole day there if you have older children as they also have a Woodland Walk and an Activity Centre with an assault course. We can’t wait to take him back when he’s older.