A wild time – in the tame UK
It is a sight as unnerving as it is hypnotic: a cheetah pacing stealthily around a rhino in long grassland, against the backdrop of the English Channel. This is Port Lympne, the 600-acre nature reserve established in 1976 by the late John Aspinall in southeast England.
Now run by his son, Damian, the Kent reserve lets overnight guests book into sumptuous treehouses and shepherd’s huts in thrillingly close proximity to more than 50 exotic species. Overseeing the transformation is Damian’s wife Victoria, 31.
It’s not cheap to stay here – top-end lodges cost up to €1,125 a night – but where else this close to home can you sip a sundowner and watch wildebeest before retiring to your own cinema room?
My children – Livvy, 10, Zac, eight, and William, three – and I were among the first guests to stay in Wolf Lodge, Victoria’s latest enterprise. The former gatehouse has been converted into a ringside seat for the wolves’ enclosure, with just a large pane of glass separating the garden from the animals.
As dusk fell, the children watched the wolves emerge from their lairs and prowl towards us. Suddenly, one of them jumped up at the glass and started pawing just inches from Zac’s face – first to Zac’s terror, then to his delight.
Victoria says that all profit at Port Lympne is ploughed back into the reserve to fund breeding programmes. Over the years, the Aspinall Foundation has bred and released hundreds of animals back into their natural habitat, including eight black rhinos.
Being so close to these animals is an experience my children will never forget. Nor will their father.
Wolf Lodge (aspinallfoundation. org/wolflodge) sleeps four and costs from €460 a night.