For the second part of our honeymoon, Hannah and I went to Longleat Safari Park, where we had booked a VIP Tour. We’ve been to the safari park before, for the traditional bus tour but this time we wanted to get up close with the animals in a 4×4 and have a private guide to show us round. We also wanted to go behind the scenes, feed the animals and enjoy some experiences you don’t get on a normal visit.
As always, I enjoy taking photographs but the main aim of our visit was not photography – so there are not photographs of everything that we did together.
First we were taken into the tiger house where we were just arms’ length from the creatures. We fed them chunks of meat on a stick, which the tigers always take standing up on their hind legs. Very intimidating creatures, and much larger than they look when they’re far away.
Then we were taken out in a Land Rover to see the two prides of lions, the cheetahs and the timberwolves. After this, we visited the smaller animals, got licked by some anteaters, tickled by some meerkats and splashed by some penguins. Finally, after lunch we rounded out the day by returning to the 4×4 to visit the other animals that we hadn’t seen before – including the monkeys and the tigers, which had been released from their house since we fed them. All in all, a fantastic day! Be sure to view these photos in full-size, as you get the captions too.
Photo geek info: most of these photos were taken with a Canon EOS 600D using a Sigma 100-300mm f/4 for the distant animals, and a Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 for the animals that were sufficiently close to the 4×4. I used two 600D bodies to avoid swapping lenses. For most of the day it was cloudy so I had to crank up the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast enough. Unfortunately the noise shows in some places, but better than not having the photos at all. Some of the pictures were taken with Hannah’s Fuji Finepix F60fd compact.
Jonathan Gazeley 
Hello, I was reading your article and found it brilliant, I was thinking of buying this package for my boyfriend as he loves big cats. Can you tell me what package this was and if you wouldn’t mind how much it was, I have had a look at their website and there is a big cat feed VIP experience, that lasts about 2.5 hours for £300 pp and didn’t know if this was the one. Here is the link http://www.longleat.co.uk/vip/experiences/big-cat-feed. Thank you if you can reply.
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Hi Sam,
We did the Gold VIP tour. I think we paid £300 per person and that was a whole day. We fed the tigers and got a tour of the whole park in a 4×4. We also got to go behind the scenes for the small animals. You’ll have an amazing time no matter what package you choose – Longleat is a fantastic place.
Jonathan
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Hi Jonathan, thank you so much for your reply, I am so excited for my other half to receive this that I am going to buy it now for him. Thank you for coming back to me. Take care. Sam
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