For my son’s 2nd birthday we decided to take Henry to a zoo. Unfortunately he broke his leg so we had to change that plan. Instead we decided to take him somewhere local for the day. That location ended up being Rutland water. Me and Shannon had been bike riding there before so we know how nice the area is. I had also previously gone to Bugtopia when I was a child, so I recommended it.
We arrive at Rutland water and park, unfortunately Bugtopia is not greatly sign posted so we ended up parking farther away than we would have liked. We walk in and pay our entrance fee, and begin to walk around.
As soon as we get to the exhibits, I take Henry out of his pushchair and carry him around to each animal. He loved looking at all the bugs, lizards, frogs and snakes on show. And they did have an impressive menagerie of animals, some rather exotic ones like the frilled dragon and the black throated monitor, that I personally had not seen on display before.
They state they have around 30 or so animals on display, and without actually counting them all, they probably do.
A section of the zoo is behind a door, which has a sign up saying “Welcome to the Jungle”. As soon as you walk in you notice the heat difference in there, I was wearing shorts that day due to it being hot outside, and it didn’t take long before I started sweating from places I didn’t realise you could sweat from. In here are even more exotic animals, including a spectacled caiman. To wich Henry instantly knew it as a “Gaggle” (his word for crocodile.) Now as far as I knew this area should have been an amalgamation of a butterfly house and a jungle, unfortunately for an unknown reason, there was no butterfly’s at all. Henry loves butterfly houses, so I was most looking forward to this part, but no matter where we looked, we just couldn’t find any.
However there were Java Sparrows flying about, and near a bridge in the middle of the area some Turtles where happily sitting in the pond. As we continued around the area, we came across some Bats asleep hanging from the roof, and further along the path we found an Iguana, now he proved difficult as he was sat on a rock with his tail hanging on to the path, this meant with a pushchair we had to be careful not to step or roll over his tail, we managed too with some careful driving from Shannon, but that sort of experience is to be expected in an enviroment like this.
With that we made our way out of the Jungle and back into the lobby area near the entrance. We purchased a magnet as is our custom for anywhere we visit, and bided farewell to the staff.
Personally I was disapointed only by the lack of butterflies, but I’m only going by my memory of the place, they could of removed them since then, no other exhibits were closed every animal was out and viewable, which is unusual for zoo’s. I would also recomend not coming to Rutland Water to specifically come here, I mean if you are in the area doing other things then it is well worth the £5 pp entry fee, but don’t be surprised if you spend less than an hour here, and then go off and enjoy Rutland as a whole, which is also worth doing.
I’d give Bugtopia an overall of 3.5/5. Mostly for its varied exhibits, realistic Jungle area and the value for money. But again it is worth visiting if your local or in the area.
To find out more about Bugtopia, click here.
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