Blair Drummond Safari Park

Ok, really. Since Doris got her MPV-look-alike car that can sit 5 people really really comfortably, we have been abusing it left, right, centre up and down, in and out.

The poor engine creaks with overuse, it's tyres screech in disagreement, the doors hang off its hinges seeking for early retirement, and even the CDs in the car are a sad collection of songs.

But the car is uber comfortable. And stable. And powerful. And it is after all - A CAR.

You know when you come overseas, little comfort things like Cars matter a lot.

Like A Lot.

You can put it right up up there next to the creation of half price Ben N Jerry's/Haagan Daz ice cream, the buy 1 get 1 free sale in Topshop during Christmas, or the 1p seats Ryanair offers once in a blue moon.

Yup, it is awesome, awesome, awesome.
Like literally AWESOME.
I'm going to use the word awesome in every other sentence of this entry.

So awesomeness aside, Doris's awesome car brought your awesomeness all the way to the awesome Stirling where the awesome Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park is.

How awesome is that?

Ok, seems like the letters a w e s o m and e on my keyboard just froze hence I am unable to type that word in sequence anymore.

So I'll change to fantabulous.

Upon our fantabulous entry to the park, we saw, much to our fantabulous delight - our first fantabulous animal:

The Fantabulous Lion

Which is fantabulously fake of course.

Ah, my mind is becoming hypoglycaemic just thinking of the word fantabulous.

Loads of animals roamed free in the park and you are allowed to drive through with your own car. I cannot express enough how tempting it is to crash straight into a flock of ducks sitting just on the grassy bit at the side of the road.

Oh SO tempting.

Unfortunately, Doris was specially trained by the RSPCA and has ZERO tolerance for cruelty towards animals. NO matter HOW many times I cajoled, begged and screamed at her, she blatantly refused to drive off road into the white mass of feathers. Even after I told her of my Hung family- passed-through-generations-secret recipe for roasting crispy duck, that is 100% guaranteed to bring her to heaven and back.

I need to work on my communication skills.

Then of course, there are places like these:

A fort with slides spouting from the sides, looking as fort-y as a fort can be. And I was ready to clamber all the way up to relive my childhood and actually managed to convince another friend to do the same.

Until we chanced upon this HUGE signboard by the side.

That read:

PURE, DOWN RIGHT, DISGUSTING DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS OVER 12s.

So, we did the only above 12 thing we could handle, and walked away.


Animals are easy to find this this safari park. They actually sit right in front of you. They have such a small area to roam and are so immobile that it is a wonder they do not develop instant DVTs and suffer a cardiac arrest from a PE.

Among the animals they had on offer were:

The Rhino
The Elephant
The Lion

3/5 of the the Big Five in South Africa. Why waste all that money to go there when they are available right here in Scotland?


And smaller animals like:

The Marmoset

The Beavers

The PigsHuh? I'm going to freaking sue you for taking my picture

The Humans

The... I have no idea what this is.


Being an adventure park, they have, to our delight, a sea lion show where they attempted to explain to us the difference between a seal and a sea lion.

Well, I will implore to share my knowledge here.

No. 1
The spelling is different, although similar.

No. 2
The sea lion is not really a lion.

No. 3
Likewise, the seal is not anything like the wax stamp that you put on your official letters

No. 4
We should all use our own brains.

The Sea Lion


The Seal


Spot the difference yourself.

There was also a show called 'Birds of Prey' and we all wandered along to see birds give flying demonstrations.
The most exciting bit of it was when the bird swooped down towards Surawee and he hit back, clipping it by its tail so it crashed head first into Mitchel.

Alright, that's a figment of my imagination. In reality, he cursed out loud and hid his face in his hands.

You want to tooting mess with me?!?!?

After driving through the park twice, we were ready to head home.

Shall I add in that the next day, we went for a Mongolian dinner where we sampled the likes of kangaroos, zebras, crocodiles, game meat and a whole load of other exotic sounding animals that are most probably found in the safari?

Pure, raw meat

Ah, the food chain.

The fundamental theory that makes the world go round.