30th Birthday Safari Fun Time
For the grand event of my 30th birthday, I was faced with a day off work with my husband and absolutely no idea of what to do. The problem with having a big birthday so close to Christmas is that no one is usually around. In face, we’re typically in a plane or car trying to make a celebration out of playing the “Alphabet Game” as the road rolls by.
This year though, I made the request to not be traveling and not be starting any type of Christmas celebration with parents. These were granted, and since I’m a twelve year old girl at heart I decided to do a hilariously campy Texas activity – a drive through safari.
About an hour south of Austin is the “Safari – Texas Style”. I’m not sure how many acres the place is (a lot) but essentially you drive 5mph through windy hills and large spaces.
The animals are divided into 3 main groups, but there aren’t really many fences. Herds of somewhat exotic herbivores roam around with their similar species. There were goats, cattle, antelope and gazelle that were free roaming the areas.
Some were SUPER friendly and came right up to the car. By super friendly, I mean hungry. Each car is given a bag of pelleted food when they come to the park, with instructions to drop the pellets on the ground for the animals. I mostly did this, but admit that a few times I fed some of the friendlier critters out of my hand. I couldn’t help it!
Even though many of the animals seem very used to humans, a lot of them were super skittish. Even though they’ve most likely been bred in captivity for several generations (a lot of Texans keep small herds like this for pets or hunting) some species were really wild. They wouldn’t get near the cars and frolicked around a lot.
The highlight of the park for me were the giraffes. Last year, the place got quazi famous by having one of their giraffes give birth to twins – which is just as rare in giraffes as it is in horses. Both twins lived to adulthood, so now there are a happy herd of giraffes. They weren’t free roaming, which was a little bit of a bummer, but I figured that’s probably just as much to protect the giraffes.
It was totally cheesy, but fun. I liked taking pictures and getting close to animals… because again, I am a twelve year old girl. It did feel a bit better than some zoos too since the spaces were so wide open.
Have you ever been to anything like this? Think you’d enjoy it?
27 thoughts on “30th Birthday Safari Fun Time”
This looks like SO much fun! Also, what is that brown cow looking creature with the MASSIVELY thick horns? How does that thing hold it’s head up? Jeesh! And, ermagherd! Pygmy goats! I see these all the time and still get all befluttered by the cute. 🙂
Just looked it up – it’s called an Ankole-Watusi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankole-Watusi
They were MASSIVE and the animals had to move their heads very slowly it seemed. I think they had 4-5 of those big guys.
The Ankolis are so cool — the place I lived in Kenya had a herd of them and they were badass. I missed out on a SUPER photo opportunity with them one day because I was too busy trying to pet them — ah well. They’re pretty drought tolerant, if I recall correctly, but also obviously prized for their horns.
Sounds like this was pretty close to a real safari! The only difference there is you can’t feed the animals, but lots of them (predators mostly!) are super friendly and come right up to your car to inspect (ahem, chew on) your tires and such. What a great birthday!!
You lived in Kenya?! That is awesome!!!!
So many animals! The giraffes are super cool.
I believe I went to that exact place when work sent me to San Antonio for a few weeks. It really was super cheesetastic fun. The animals all seemed pretty content with life too
Got to be! This was super near San Antonio and there’s only one in our area of Texas as far as I know. I agree that the animals seemed pretty satisfied.
You got some great shots! Hubby and I LOVE stuff like this – we want to visit Austin in the near future and this will totally be on our list of fun, geeky stuff to do!
Come visit! I know a tiny bungalow hotel that is super cheap, but comes with a few extra dog guests 😉 This place also has a cavern cave thing next to it, but we didn’t do that.
Because I am a dork – and was looking for things to do on a weekend – I did the caverns as well. They were surprisingly cool
Super fun!! I love stuff like that- I think there’s something similar here in Oklahoma that I’ll have to look into.
There is an African Lion Safari in Ontario but I have been advised to take junky cars only lol. Love the zebras and giraffes the most!
My husband had many moments of heavy breathing after he saw one of the larger goats jump on the car in front of us. He was very glad we took my cheaper car!
How awesome! I love the zoo, and giraffes are one of my favorites. In a different life I think it would have been super cool to major in zoology in college… but I couldn’t pass the Chemistry requirements to save my life.
I went to a safari in November and it was a lot of fun. I am also a 12 year old girl at heart which was evidenced in my recent feed all the wild donkeys day: http://diyhorseownership.blogspot.com/2015/01/befriending-wild-donkeys.html
Love it! Sounds very similar to the Lazy 5 Ranch near Charlotte NC. I haven’t been since I was 12, but it was awesome! http://www.lazy5ranch.com/welcome.html
awww i love giraffes
happy birthday!! this is awesome – i love zoos but can see how this could be a totally different (and maybe better?) experience 🙂
so fun! I would totally do that!
I’m not sure if it was the same one but we went to one when I lived in Austin. It was great! I was probably 10 or 11. I just remember the ostriches sticking their heads through the sun roof 🙂
The sleeping deer <3 OMGERD.
I would love to do something like that! Sounds like a super fun b-day
This looks to be loads of fun and really enjoyable it is definitely the type of thing that I would love to do!
Very cool!I heard about those when I lived in Canyon Lake, Texas(near New Braunfels) and an hour from San Antonio.
I’m pretty sure this is the exact same place I went to with my family when my dad was stationed in San Antonio. I was 7 years old. Before we could stop him, one of the ostriches stuck his head through the driver window to eat the food from the container on my dad’s lap…my dad almost lost his balls that day! Hahaha It was otherwise awesome. Like being on a real safari. It is so cool to see that the place still exists! What a small world too! 😀
Gorgeous photos (as always)
What an absolutely fab way to spend your birthday ☺☺☺☺
You have a safari in Texas!? How cool!