Paradise Wildlife Park, Hertfordshire

We stumbled across Paradise Wildlife Park by accident.

A brown sign at the side of the road en route to a weekend getaway said it was only a couple of hours away.

Reviews online told us it was a great day out.

We booked tickets online, and headed towards the park on a sunny Saturday morning.

It's a trip to the zoo, but on a smaller scale. It has animals from big cats to wolves, zebras to snakes, and you feel so close to all of them. The way the enclosures were built meant many didn't seem like 'enclosures' at all, and the staff all over the park were clearly so passionate about the animals they looked after.

The first thing we went to was a talk on red pandas, who were just beautiful and the keeper seemed almost giddy with excitement as he told us about the species, their lives in the wild, and what is being done to protect them.

The big cats were so regal-looking, and high up walkways allowed you to walk around and look down into the enclosures. There were so many talks going on throughout the day, and we listened to ones on big cats, penguins, the red pandas and wolves. There was also a reptile house and a small farmyard on the site.

The cheetah talk was fascinating, as they explained she is partially tame to allow them to carry out routine procedures like immunisations without putting the animal to sleep, as this can be dangerous for big cats.

Throughout the day, though, there was very strong emphasis on the fact there has to be SOME human contact for reasons like these, but that they are still wild animals, and this human time is minimised as much as possible.

The talks went into exactly how the park operated and exactly what the conservation processes were for each species, giving an insight into the landscape as a whole rather than just listing facts about each animal.

If you have children, this day out could go on even longer. There were huge play areas, with activities and slides of every kind to keep children of all ages entertained, as well as multiple food outlets and the opportunity to feed the farm animals. 

Even without touching these elements of the park, we spent a good three or four hours strolling round the park, taking in as much as we could. 

The beautiful weather finished the day off perfectly, and I'm so pleased we stumbled across this gem of a day out.

I've spoken to other people since who live nearby and just love it, so it's definitely worth considering if you're in the Hertfordshire area.