Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo.......

To add to this all the remaining gravel pathways are now tarmacked to make wheelchair and push chair access far better. New access to all levels of the park are now completed completing our compliance to the Disability Discrimination Act.

This is a quote from the website of the South Lakes Wild Animal Park and reading this you'd think Oh this looks OK, in fact its all pretty accessible. There are some nice photos and on the screen it looks good. What they don't tell you is the very important fact that is all on the side of a bloody great hill and no amount of landscaping is going to remove this rather important fact. There is no way you can do it yourself here, and to be honest I reckon you'd really need a couple of people to take it in turns to push you round. Having promised my 3 year old that we were going to see the giraffes they was no turning back, so it was a case of bite the bullet and KBO in our best stiff upper lip fashion. My husband was very gamely carrying the baby, dealing with Elkan, and trying to give me a push where possible, but hes not superman and only has one pair of arms, amazingly. It just wasn't working. So I ended up sitting in the cafe with the baby while my husband took our son round. They finished off the afternoon with a ride on the miniature railway. This is very interesting from an access point of view. It literally runs through the middle of the park, so even assuming that I could have got myself around it, Id still have to hop over the tracks every time I wanted to go from one side of the park to the other. To say I'm bitterly disappointed is an understatement. I don't really care that its inaccessible, its just that they give the impression its ok, and if Id have known what it was really like we wouldn't have gone. So on this occasion I'm going to write to them and ask for my money back. Our day was ruined, I felt pathetic and I saw absolutely nothing. So yes I do want my money back.