Once again, seemingly each year, Janet's birthday comes around.
So, I arranged a surprise trip to Badoca Safari Park, about 15km North of Sines.
With a 3½ hour drive to do, plus stops, we travelled on the day before the event and arrived at the Hotel Rural Monte da Leziria in Vila Nova de Santa André at approximately 2pm. According to the booking confirmation, we could check in from 4pm, so we parked the car, then walked to the village and found a café for a snack. Then we took a walk around a large park area in the village.
It turns out that check-in was available from 2pm and the hotel was actually 3-star rating and not 4-star - two errors on booking.com.
Back at the hotel, we checked in and settled into the room. We received a list of recommended restaurants from the receptionist and, over a drink and a game of Chinese Checkers in the deserted hotel bar, decided on the destination for our dinner that evening. It would be the 'Figo Doce' in the centre of the village, just a short walk from the hotel.
The meal and the service did not disappoint, and we left to take another lazy walk around the local park.
The next day was the 'big event', so we had breakfast and headed to the safari park for the opening time at 9:30.
We had to wait a few minutes for the ticket office to open, pay the entrance fee, and confirm the VIP experiences that I had booked.
Once inside, a photographer was waiting to take our picture for a memory of the visit.
We arrived at opening time, but many of the larger exhibits had not yet opened. However, the peacock was in full display for us.
We looked at many of the animals on display and planned a route to get us to the safari starting point by 11:00 for our appointment. The day was already warm so we searched for a place to buy some water. This was more difficult than expected, but we did eventually find a machine that was working.
At the safari start, our guide Diogo brought a cool box with complimentary water bottles for us 😅
The experience was worth the effort, we were jostled in the back of the jeep while travelling off the beaten track.
One of the highlights is the encounter with giraffes, there are six in the park.
A small herd of zebras were too busy feeding to bother with us.
The water buffalo were keeping cool in the midday heat.
There are many ostriches around the park, and some have nests with eggs, but we saw no chicks.
The safari tour took a full 1½ hours and was very informative and thoroughly enjoyable.
After a reasonable lunch at the park restaurant, we had our second VIP experience, the falconry display and private encounter.
The display was quite impressive and, as usual, some of the birds did not perform completely to their cue.
At the end of the public display, we enjoyed our encounter with the birds of prey at the centre and then the chance to hold and pet some of the owls from the display.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent re-visiting some of the exhibits that were not fully open when we arrived in the morning.
A great day out, completed with the obligatory trip through the gift shop.
Once back at the hotel, we relaxed on the room balcony for a while before heading to the local Chinese restaurant 'Cozinha Asiática' for yet another nice meal.
More Badoca Safari Park images in the album ...
Janet's birthday holiday break was not quite over, we had another day, see the next post.