Our Kyushu Trip Day 02 (I) – African Safari Wildlife Park

Date: 26 December 2014 Friday

07:00 AM Sunrise

I planned to wake up early to catch the sunrise but I overslept 🙁 The sun was already out when I woke up. Lucky I managed to catch some last moments of the sunrise.

08:00 AM Breakfast

Went down to the restaurant on level 2 for breakfast., which was included in the Ryokan room package.

å¥½ä¸°ç››çš„æ—©é¤ï¼Very yummy and filling Japanese style breakfast.

R looking so cute here with her “bed hair”. Think she was feeling grumpy for waking up too early.

10:00 AM African Safari Wildlife Park

Our first stop of the day was the African Safari Wildlife.

It was our first time to a drive through Safari Park! The African Safari Wildlife Park is located outside of Beppu and is very different from other parks. Park visitors stay enclosed in either the park’s jungle bus (need to pay extra for the ride) or in their own car while the animals roam freely. After getting our tickets from the park ticket booth, we proceed to enter the park. We didn’t have to get out of our car at all. All visitors are not allowed to open the windows or get out of the car once they entered the park, so do not leave your cameras in the boot!

There are a few zones in the park, housing the different types of animals. Each entrance to the zones contains 2 big chain wired gates, controlled by the rangers in the gate towers. The 1st gate will allow vehicles to enter the neutral zone and will close fully before opening the 2nd gate. This is to avoid animals from escaping or moving to the other zones, in case they kill each other.

That’s the ranger’s car.

That’s the big jungle bus.

11:00 AM Petting Zoo

We enjoyed the drive through tour as we got to get up close to the animals but it was a little disappointing because there are limited varieties of animals. We took a break from the driving and popped over to the petting zoo (part of the Safari).