Latest news with #Howletts
The Sun
2 days ago
- The Sun
Popular zoo with UK's largest herd of elephants offering kids tickets for £10 – great for families in school holidays
A POPULAR zoo which is home to the UK's largest herd of elephants is offering kids tickets for just £10 this summer. Howletts Wild Animal Park, in Kent, is packed with wildlife wonders, from mighty gorillas and gentle elephants to prowling big cats. 2 Howletts is a wildlife sanctuary and home to over 390 animals across 44 species, including Sumatran tigers and Kent's only giant anteaters. Explore a 90-acre adventure in ancient parkland that is ideal for great days out in Kent with the entire family. Make your day out even more special with a close encounter with your favourite animal, or a guided walk with expert Rangers. For the school summer holidays, kids can bag entry for just a tenner, giving families the chance to get up close to incredible animals without busting the budget. Key highlights There are plenty of immersive experiences — including a walk-through enclosure where visitors can mingle with free-roaming lemurs just inches away. Animal fans can also step back in time in the Ice Age zone, packed with life-sized sculptures of prehistoric beasts. The elephants steal the show — and you might be lucky enough to tuck into lunch at a picnic table right next to their enclosure. The monkeys are another heart-melter, with a few adorable babies clinging to their mums. The Pavilion Restaurant offers a variety of meals and refreshments, with ample seating both indoors and outdoors. There's also a huge outdoor play area where little ones can burn off some energy, plus plenty of grassy spots perfect for a run-around between animal encounters. The Best Value Attraction In The UK Is Flamingo Land Customer reviews Visitors rave about the park, praising its spacious enclosures, knowledgeable staff and the chance to see rare animals up close. Many call it a 'must-visit' for families, with kids loving the hands-on learning and parents impressed by the zoo's strong conservation message. Taking to TripAdvisor, one wrote: "As a family we always try and find somewhere new to visit! We come across here so we thought why not! And we was NOT disappointed." "Best zoo we have been too that's not just because of the beautiful place it is but because of the people that make it so beautiful! Tips for keeping organised during the summer holidays IF you aren't sure how to keep organised during the summer holidays, then you've come to the right place. Senior Fabulous Writer, Sarah Bull, has shared her top tips... FOOD: One thing I find difficult is keeping on top of my kids' constant requests for snacks. Despite the fact they have one break time at school and then lunch, their demands for food during school holidays seem to be 24/7. To make things easier, I've decided to bring in snack baskets for them. They each have a certain amount of food (the same so that there's no arguments) and once it's gone, it's gone. Not only does it make my life easier, it teaches them that they have to spread things out - and to maybe see if the 'hunger signals' are actually ones of hunger or thirst. ACTIVITIES: It can be hard to keep your kids entertained - and six weeks can feel like an awfully long time. One thing to take advantage of is having an outside space. If you have a garden, you can put bikes or scooters in there, or even a trampoline. It keeps them entertained and also makes sure they're doing some kind of physical activity every day. If you don't have the space for a climbing frame or added activities, why not give the kids a bucket of chalk and get them to draw on the paving slabs? Or another one I did was to give the kids a 'magic solution' I needed painted on the wall (it was just water and washing up liquid) to protect it. They spent a good hour doing that! CLOTHES: One thing I've used from when my daughter, now six, started school is to use clothing drawers for her and my son, who's 10. On a Sunday, I put all of their clothes, underwear, socks etc in the corresponding drawer for the week. Usually it's uniform, but I still use the drawers during the holiday too. It just makes things easier, more organised and less stressful - for all of us. "From the start it was just the best experience and a lifetime long memory made!" Another added: "We have NEVER been to a zoo that is so friendly and we as a family love a zoo but this zoo everyone was so lovely. "We went for my daughter's birthday and the Lion feed was so private which was amazing!! "Honestly we can't wait to go back and I would highly recommend the zoo!! I would just go back to see all the staff again!! Thank you for making my daughter's birthday special." A third penned: "Plenty of animals to see! We saw Tigers and a group of lion cubs having a meal. Nice range of animals. It was also lovely to see a Black Rhino. "Each enclosure provides information about how they are recused and if they plan to return back to the wild. Attention to detail is noticeable. "My favourite part was the Jurassic display! Life-sized models of animals/ dinosaurs, the kids love it!" The deal runs from July 23 to September 2, 2025. 2
The Sun
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Nepo-baby looks just like her 90s TV star mum as she cuddles a lion in Africa – but can you guess who she is?
TV star Donna Air's daughter Freya Aspinall looks just like her mum as she cuddles a huge lion in Africa. The 21-year-old conservationist is seen cuddling two lions in a recent video before releasing them into the wild with her dad Damien. 7 7 7 7 Freya works with The Aspinall Foundation, a charity run by her father, Damian Aspinall, and founded by her grandfather, the late John Aspinall. Freya rests her head on a lion in one photo on Instagram, and penned: "My beautiful ZEMO on the day we released him in Africa. I can't wait to see him soon." Freya spent much of her childhood surrounded by animals at Howletts and Port Lympne Wild Animal Parks in Kent. She now boasts 1.5m followers on Instagram, where she shares videos and pics of her life, and she says conservation is in her DNA. 'I grew up with animals and couldn't imagine my world without them,' she recently told the Financial Times. 'This is in my blood – I've always known what I wanted to do.' However, she has inherited Donna's striking features and is also very close to her TV star mum. It's been more than three decades since Donna shot to fame as a child star on Byker Grove, alongside Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. She later swapped acting for presenting, landing gigs on shows including MTV UK and The Big Breakfast. A string of cameo film roles followed before she participated in reality shows Splash!, Celebrity MasterChef and the tenth series of Dancing On Ice. Amazing moment millionaire conservationist Damian Aspinall's wife meets the tender gorillas he bred in Africa Donna, 45, is also known for having an on-off relationship for four years with Kate Middleton's brother James Middleton. Freya's parents, Donna and Damian, were introduced in 2000 at a dinner party by their friend Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Donna was 21, Damian 40, and their relationship and parenting style quickly made headlines. Shortly after Freya's birth, the couple famously said they planned to place their baby in a gorilla enclosure at Howletts, allowing her to be carried off by a female gorilla. The move was a tradition Damian carried out with his eldest daughters when they were babies. In another video Freya feeds a gorilla snacks from her pocket. She says: "Animals don't belong in a cage in zoos they belong in the wild. We hate zoos. "Kifu is at our sanctuary because his wife's who are a little bit older than him need medical attention 3 times a day and wouldn't survive the journey back to Africa. "Gorillas live in a family group, so it would be completely unnatural to send him alone and separate him from his family. "It's the same as humans if we were sent away never to see our family again we would all be so unhappy. "So for him we give him the best life possible sadly at our sanctuary but his 5 sons are happily free in the wild where they belong. "It's important to highlight any animal that can go back to the Wild should go back to the Wild and those that 100% can't should be given the best life possible, but this shouldn't be an excuse for zoos to keep all animals behind a bars for their business." 7 7
