Wildwood Kent fiasco

The weather was supposed to be good, not too hot and humid. The National Rail Enquiries website listed a train from a station named Bromley South and the route would take an hour and thirty minutes to reach a town named Sturry. From there a bus takes you to Wildwood Kent. Fair enough, so I traveled to Bromley South where it went all pear shaped.

Some idiot woman at the ticket booth said the route on the website was wrong and sent me all the way to Ramsgate on the English Channel to change and return to reach Sturry. It would take at least an hour and forty-five minutes just to reach Ramsgate, then even longer waiting for the train departure to reach where I wanted to go. The journey would take around 3 hours. On the way a lady on the train said get off at Herne Bay and a bus would have me at Wildwood in about 20-30 minutes, so I did.

I departed from the bus and followed the signage to the Wildwood. The path wound all over the place, re-affirming the fact that the English cannot go between 2 points in a straight line to save their lives. I paid the meager entrance fee, but they do not have a map so you can figure out where you are and and what greeted me was a big let down.

To be fair

If you go to Wildwood just to see the creatures there, you will enjoy yourself. A group of school children were have lunch in it's cafe as were some families. All having fun on their day out. Wildwood is a zoo, not unlike the one on the Isle of Man I visited last year, with a link to the animal photos. While there I also visited the home of modern democracy, which began on the Isle of Man well over a thousand years ago.

Waste of time and money

Look carefully at this route. Nearly all of them are like this with the metal fencing, so taking a photograph is out of the question, except in a very few places. I wanted to take some fotos of the European Brown Bear and her cub. It took ages to find the view point and was impossible to take a photograph. I put my camera back into it's case, stuck the case into my backpack and walked out.

The photo's I did take

A lot of the animals just could not be seen. The night creatures, like wolves, foxes and badgers were obviously asleep. I did see a small Albino Wallaby but it hid behind a high strand of grass, the other Wallabies were seperate in an enclosure next to it but the fence meant no fotos were taken.

Boar

Soay Sheep Ram

Wrap up and better route home

Walking out I saw a small industrial estate with a road taking me stright to the bus stop and used it instead of the one I came in on, it was a lot faster. Once at the rail station in Sturry I saw that the next train would take me to Sevenoaks, where I could change trains and one stopped very near to where I live. I walked in the door about an hour and a half later.

Oh well...

Jul 01, 2025