Up close with the big beasts –
LOOKING out from my lodge, I see a determined rhino lumbering past on strong, stout legs. As if to balance the picture, a more distant giraffe prances daintily along in the opposite direction.
Leaning on the rail on my veranda, high among the trees, I am in plain sight of some of the most wondrous wildlife on Earth, and this could easily be Africa.
But green fields and hedges, Romney Marshes in the middle distance, and the English Channel just beyond give the game away. For this is Kent, not Kenya.
Most zoos and collections in the UK offer wildlife-watching on a strict nine-to-five basis. For the full immersive, round-the-clock experience, you had to go to Africa. But now that’s changing. A number of zoos offer overnight stays, with after-hours visits to the enclosures. And from this summer, Port Lympne, near Folkestone, is offering an experience that staff believe comes as close to the pampering and luxury of the African game lodge as you can find in Europe.
We are among the first guests at Port Lympne’s Treehouse Hotel, a stylish line of ten lodges perched on a ridge.
My lounge has big picture windows and the trappings of ‘upscale lux’ – a Samsung Smart TV, a De’Longhi coffee machine, and soft rain shower.
At the bottom of a long flight of stairs, my personal golf buggy awaits to speed me around this huge reserve.
The Aspinall Foundation, which also runs Howletts Wild Animal Park, near Canterbury, has a simple philosophy. It cares for rare or threatened animals, breeds them, and where possible sends them back to where they belong – be it a remote jungle in Gabon (lowland gorillas) or the steppes of central Asia (Przewalski’s wild horses).
All the money made from these new lodges, and the existing accommodation, is directed to that one purpose.
It is early evening. The day visitors have left, so it’s time for a game drive. Now, comparing black rhinos and lemurs in the green fields of Kent with the awesome abundance of wildlife in the Serengeti is as pointless as rating a well-run county athletics match against the Olympics. But our Land Cruiser, bouncing around a big enclosure where the safe animals live, felt as bone-juddering as the real thing.
To set the scene, a zebra trotted down the slope like White Rabbit in fluster in Alice In Wonderland. Ha on, though. Surely this ceremonial guard of giraffes now dipping their necks towards our vehicle is a well-rehearsed set-up? No, we are assured this is no circus trick – the are only interested in supper. Their keeper has filled feeding baskets on the side of our vehicle.
Just ahead of us is a pack of hounds,