Weekend Away In Bristol

For my 18th birthday, my friends Harry and Dan both put money towards a Big Cat Experience at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm for 2. For those of you who don't know, I am a massive big cat fan; tigers being my favourite animal, so I absolutely loved this present, and earlier this month I finally had the chance to do it. 

I travelled to Bristol with my special someone and we stayed in a Premier Inn for 2 nights. It was such a fun weekend and honestly, I didn't want to come home. The first night we had to get to sleep early because we had to be at the zoo for 7:45am! So we got settled, watched some TV and talked before going to get kebab and heading to bed. We ended up sleeping at around 2am in the end haha.....oops. 

The next morning absolutely killed us having to get up so early, and my gosh was it cold! But we got to the zoo on time, dressed in our hoodies, leggings/jeans and hiking boots, ready to start the day. 

Basically, the experience included preparing food and feeding tigers, letting them outside and cleaning their beds, and then getting involved in the Big Cat Talk where we had the chance to feed them again in front of the public. The lady who was with us was so lovely and she was giving us loads of information about all different animals; so it was educational too haha. 

Firstly we got the food ready for the tigers to eat. This meat was pig's tongue, which just sounded gross. They eat all kinds of things, but apparently their treat is a pig's head! The tongue was only a treat, not their main dinner. They seemed to love it until we tried to feed them the tips of the tongues, which they weren't interested in eating.

The tiger that I'm feeding here is a male called Khan. They also had a female called Tiana, but they have to keep them separate otherwise they fight. We were told that tigers like to live alone, so although these two admire each other through the divider, they could not be put in with each other. It was just such an amazing experience, being up close to such a dangerous animal and having the chance to interact with it was just hard to believe. They are such beautiful animals don't you think? 

We then had to clean out their enclosures, spraying it down and then sprinkling things like cinnamon around them because the tigers apparently like the scents. We also had to pick up remains of their dinner, which has left me scarred for life because I picked up the pig's head which still had some meet left on the snout, and then when I turned it over, an eyeball was still left behind! I can't even describe my reaction, it was just urghh haha.

After that, we walked around the zoo for a bit and went to the gift shop to pick up some souveniers and animal feed which we got for free. We also grabbed some lunch before the Big Cat Talk because we were both starving!

We then headed back up to feed the tigers again in front of the public; so Im sure I am in quite a few of people's photos from that day unfortunately haha, but it was amazing getting involved :) I think this time it was a lump of port that we chopped up, so not as bad as the first dish!

Before we went home, we went into the maze which was extremely muddy; I was clinging to the hedges to hold me up as I stepped along the very edge of the path haha. It worked, because I didn't slip and get covered in mud, which I cannot say for someone else :') We spent an hour in there throwing bird feed at each other and chatting before we finally found our way out and went back to the hotel to shower.

We both got ready to go out for dinner, and I decided to wear my rose gold elegant touch nails which I bought in Superdrug a while ago. I was so tired that I ended up getting glue everywhere and it drove me crazy trying to pick it off! But anyways, when we were finally both ready, we went next door to the Brewers Fayre to eat.

We had a lovely dinner and dessert. I think for my perfect day I would have Weetabix for breakfast, a ham & cheese panini for lunch, a bbq chicken melt (Chicken with bacon and cheese and bbq sauce) for dinner, and then a waffle with caramel sauce and caramel ice cream for dessert! :) 
After we had finished stuffing our faces, we headed back to the room to bed. I cannot explain how tired I was haha.


Back in the room, we got ready for bed and then started chatting for a bit. At one point, I had drifted slightly and had started dreaming about something and all I remember saying was "You booked your's first", at which point I woke up and realised I had actually said that out loud haha! We then decided it was probably time for sleep :')

The whole weekend was amazing; so many memories and new experiences. We were given a little pack at the end of the experience with a little certificate, a t-shirt and a pen which was a nice touch too :) 
The next day we headed home, grabbed some McDonalds/KFC and a Starbucks coffee on the way and then went home to carry on catching up with sleep haha. 

I would definitely recommend this experience to anyone who loves big cats as much as I do. They also do other experiences too, such as with Elephants and small animals. It is amazing and something you will never forget. 
Anyway, thankyouu for reading, hope you enjoyed hearing about what I got up to, as I love diary posts myself :) 

xx