Goin' on Safari

This weekend, we took a glorious drive to Santa Rosa and visited an out of the way place, called Safari West.  This 400-acre, privately-owned wild animal preserve is home to countless species of hooved mammals, birds and other non-predatory animals that hail from Africa.  

It's like a zoo, but without cages separating you from the animals.   We saw a ostrich close enough to count his teeth, a zebra scratching his bottom on an oak tree on a few feet from us and a giraffe that leaned into our jeep, just to take a look around.  

The bright orange and blue feathers in the aviary captured the Magster's attention, and the tortoise impressed La Nina with its slow, but steady gate.  (He almost stepped on her foot.)   There were a few cheetahs in an enclosure well-away from the "game" animals and even a few fierce looking porcupines.   

While we made our visit a day trip, there are tent cabins available for rent for folks interested in making a weekend of their stay.  For about $65 per person, we ate a fabulous lunch outdoors, then hopped into a 1950's dodge munitions vehicle for a two-hour tour of the preserve.   It was well-worth the price of admission.  Because there is so little information out there about this place, we had no idea what to expect, but found Safari West to be a hidden gem in the Bay Area.  

A few tips:  

*  Due to the length of the tour, reservations are a must.   

*  Go easy on the water before you load onto the jeep.  There are no bathrooms in the preserve, only trees. And before stopping, the guides need to find trees without animals hiding nearby.  It can mean a bit of a wait.  

*  There are no signs helping you find your way to the preserve.  Just follow the directions on their web site and you'll find the place.  

*  Our kids were good ages to do this (they're six and four), the jeep ride may be tough on kids much younger.

For more information:   Visit Safari West.