Zurich - Wildnispark Langenberg

Baby Bear at Wildnispark Langenberg

For a lot of March this year, the weather was stunning. It’s been fairly cold (at least to my Egypt-accustomed skin), but we’ve had blue sky most days. I haven’t really made the most of it, although the cold puts me off and somehow I’m faffing about a lot these days.

Anyway, last weekend, Steph came over so that we could catch up on each other’s news. She’d suggested going to Rapperswil, which would indeed be beautiful in this weather, but at the same time she’d been there before and it was a Sunday, so many things would be closed.

After thinking for a while, I decided we could go to Wildnispark Langenberg. I haven’t been there for ages, maybe a decade even. I’ve been before with Geraldine and Sheila, I’m pretty sure. The most surprising thing about the WIldnispark is that it’s free – for Switzerland, this is astonishing. Wikipedia tells me that it’s the oldest wildlife park in Switzerland.

Anyway, it’s basically a zoo but all the animals are in huge enclosures of natural woodland, so walking around it is a bit like doing a safari because you may or may not be able to spot the animals. They have informative plaques up with some key facts (number of young, gestation period, etc) and pictures and for me, it’s just enough information to make it worth reading and not so much or so dense that you want to give up before you start.

It’s a huge place and actually we barely touched it. However, we did spot deer, antelope, wild pig, bears, and wolves. Oh, and humans, of course. They labeled the outside area with the restaurants and café as the Human enclosure. It was pretty busy, so there were plenty of humans to be seen, along with a fair number of infants.

Unfortunately, my camera decided not to work on sporadic occasions (it’s not that old, and it was expensive, so I’ll be upset if it’s already had its day – it’s called Olympus Tough, so I expect it to be sturdy!). However, maybe it’s for the best because I’m not sure how many photographs of animals I really need.

Steph was keen to see a lynx, but I seem to have been the only person there incapable of seeing it, although, to be fair to myself, I think it wasn’t that easy to spot. I kept on deliberately looking elsewhere in the enclosure because what usually happens is that everyone’s fixated on the creature that’s difficult to see and then another animal is just sitting there in plain sight that no-one has noticed. However, on this occasion, this wasn’t the case. Or at least, I didn’t see it, which might not be saying very much.

The day went really quickly because we’d been robbed of an hour in the morning with the changing of the clocks; also I am not good at getting up early and on top of that, we spent some time eating. However, apparently, we managed to do 10,000 steps, which was as astonishing to me as it not costing anything to get in. So, I suppose we didn’t really do too badly at all, and it gives you an idea of the size of the place.

Steph managed to drop something in one of the enclosures, so on our way back we tried to retrieve it through a system of getting a stick to get a stick which could then get the item in question. It wasn’t really her fault, as the connector just popped off her water bottle and flew into the enclosure when its logical flight path should have been to go to the pavement (not that any flight path was intended; no take off was planned!). Fortunately, the enclosure housed deer, so we were not in any mortal danger.

Anyway, it was a good day out and I was surprised that it had been so long since I’d last been there. If you have children (or even if you don’t), I can highly recommend it.