Mar 21, 2023 4 min read homeschool

A Trip to Port Lympne

Somewhat suprisingly, the summer months end up being our quietest time when it comes to our family outings as we generally try to avoid all the usual haunts of the school kids during their summer holidays.

This certainly isn't because we don't want our precious offspring mixing with those pesky schoolkids, it's simply because our <5 year old kids like doing all the stuff that the 5-10 year olds also enjoy, such as soft play, bouncy castles and the big-kid playgrounds.

As a result, they end up getting knocked over and pushed about by the much bigger kids if they try and share the space at the same time, and it spooks them because they frequently end up getting hurt.

Today however we made an exception, because we couldn't bear missing the opportunity to meet Paw Patrol at a special promotional event held by the wild animal park.

The kids are mad about these peppy police pups, frequently insisting that we refer to them by their 'real' name (the three year old is either Chase or Marshall depending on the day, or Rocky if he's in the bath, and the two-year-old is always Rubble).

We are also members of Port Lympne and its sister park Howletts in Bekesbourne just south of Canterbury. We visit Howletts on an almost weekly basis as it's a great place for the kids to run around and explore, in an environment that's safe and very close to our house.

Port Lympne we tend to visit around three times a year which then makes the dual membership worth it.

One of the main reasons we really enjoy both of these wild animal parks is the sheer amount of space. Not only do these parks genuinely feel like places set up with the animals' best interests at heart, with big enclosures and lots of hiding space for animals that don't feel like being stared at today, but they also have wide 'roads' and enough open space for the human beings that it never feels overly croweded. Even during the height of the summer holidays, when the whole of Kent has simultaneously had the same bright idea for how to occupy the kids today, they don't feel too crowded and there aren't any big queues for toilets or food.

Our Three Favourite things about Port Lympne

Safari

The three-year-old likes the giraffes and camels in particular. It takes about an hour so be prepared if you have little kids that may need some snacks and drinks to occupy them enough to stop them climbing out the car, but you get to see an amazing variety of animals in large open spaces. Just be aware you have to book the safari slot when you're booking your park tickets.

Dinosaur Forest

There is a spectacular array of amazing models of creatures from the Devonian to the Tertiary time periods, with a particularly large Cretaceous section. Our kids love the program "Dinosaur Train", which we as parents particularly enjoy as it's very fact based with a real paleontologist giving snippets of information at the end. The kids delight in relating ideas and concepts from this programme to the dinosaurs on display in the dinosaur forest, and this also overlaps with seeing the fossils in the natural history museum. As with all museums and exhibitions, the three-year-old has to smash through the whole display at lightning pace first, to ensure he's seen everything at least once, before then going back to the beginning and working through at a more sedate, detailed pace.

Brown bears and Binturong

We have seen these cute but feisty cuddlies swimming around in the ponds and playing together on several of our visits. They're a joy to watch and as a visistor you are able to get really quite close for a proper close up experience. Also known as the 'bearcat' the binturong tends to hide high up in the trees. Our kids seem obsessed with it for some reason.

Get a golf buggy

If you stay over at the park in certain types of accommodation then you have access to the parks golf buggies which are great for buzzing around. If you don't stay in the accommodation then you need to be prepared for some steep hills in a number of places across the park. This is definitely not one to do if you're feeling tired!

If your kids are completely independent walkers then the hills are more manageable but they are tricky even with a pushchair (especially one with two kids and six kilos of snacks loaded into).

We have been using the hills to discuss concepts of chemical energy, kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy as well as the principle of conservation of energy.

We do get some strange looks as the two-year-old pelts down the hills shouting 'I am releasing my gravitational potential energy!'