Rhino and Baboon Mixed Exhibit at Port Lympne, 01/08/10

Home to Eastern Black Rhinos and Guinea Baboons. There are multiple rhino paddocks - only this one has the baboons as well (and it seems to not be used by the rhinos every day).

Didn't the entire zoo used to be a walk-through place, i.e. until they made this (seemingly half-hearted, though I still need to see the place with my own eyes) decision to jump on the safari park bandwagon (of sorts, clearly it will never be a safari park in the classic sense)?

Yes, it was. You walked all around on pathways which go up and down and here and there- very long distances too. But they also had a tractor & trailer 'bus' service at busy times, which would pick up visitors and drop them off again at various points in the park. That system worked quite well until it was unfortunately disbanded( due to the advent of the Safari Trucks. to the African Experience).

Then in 2005 they opened up the previously private/offshow 'Combe Farm' area to the East of the main park, as the 'African Experience' and acquired some common African species to go into it. It had previously held their surplus Asian Hoofstock and these made up numbers in the new area despite being from the wrong continent. They brought in the Safari Trucks to visit that area, but dropped the Tractor/trailer rides in the main park as a result, as the Safari Lorries partly duplicated the same route. So in the last five years or so visitors in the main park have had to try to walk around the whole of it- apart from the 'Safari ride' at extra cost.

What they are doing now is reorganising it so the Safari ride will cover most(about 5/6ths of the area of the park) rather than only one portion and presumably reorganise the admission charges etc to reflect these changes.

see my p.m.!

I'm sure the original trailer ride went straight through a number of deer and antelope paddocks, including along the road in the photo. There were many cattle grids throughout the park for the trailer to pass over. In fact, you can still see an old derelict one by the side of the sambar paddock.