Knowsley Safari Park, part 2

 After my Big Cats encounter (see previous post) I was able to enjoy the rest of my day at the safari park at my leisure. There is a walk around part and a drive through. 

Although it was December, the weather was actually quite reasonable so I made the most of it.

And they have meerkats! Forget Sergei and chums, these are the real deal and are the cutest things ever! (sorry, sounded like an American teenager there)

During lockdown I decided that I was going to experiment more with photoshop. Didn't get too far but this is one image I played around with a bit...

Nothing too radical just yet!

Then on to the wolves enclosure. Pretty scary stuff as the wall and ditch between us didn't look nearly big enough!

So on to the drive through portion of this journey.

Downside of driving through there are no name signs so I can't wow you with my knowledge of what these gorgeous creatures are. But this photo was split second timing. They were all walking along and suddenly just stopped and looked over! I have definitely found that with my photography, it's often a lot more luck than judgement!

Talking of a lack of judgement. Driving along and stop alongside the rhinos to take a couple of shots.

After taking this one, the rhino looked in my direction and apparently didn't like what he saw. He started walking very slowly towards me, but I was a good 50m away so wasn't too worried, until it got to about 10m away, never taking his eyes off me! He then started to trot and I will admit to being a little worried at this point!

During my big cat safari Janet had said that if a large animal approaches, drive away very slowly so I do that and the rhino trots a little faster. I now have a Vauxhall Astra (drove the Fiesta into a pond but that's a whole other story) and it is covered in dents and scratches (one not so careful previous lady owner) but I figured a rhino shaped indentation would be a bit too much of a challenge for the body shop!

So I speed up slightly and so does he and he follows me within about 2ft of the car for around 50m and I am shaking and muttering "omg, omg" under my breath as a cross between a prayer and a mantra.

Luckily he then decides that I am not worth the exercise and slowly turns back to his feeding station. I drive on a fair way and pull over to take a few deep breaths, thank whoever or whatever is watching over me and calm myself down.

Luckily the camels didn't find me as interesting!

So all in all, an absolutely fabulous day, mostly.

Lessons learned: Don't forget, that just because you are in your car in a park in England, the wildlife can be pretty wild still!

Also that I need a better telephoto lens, which I now have, but need to work on my upper body strength so that I can actually pick the thing up!

Diet Diary Still a work in progress