Blair Drummond Safari Park is dialling up the fright-factor this year with a brand new Halloween event which offers a full day of frights and fun for the whole family, HalloWild. Over the weekend, we were kindly invited to check it out and I have to say, it totally exceeded all of our expectations. I’m going to go as far as to say it lived up to Maspie Den. If you have read my book, you will know that this statement is a massive compliment.
Blair Drummond Safari Park has been on our hit list for ages. I am so glad we did it in style and already we all want to return. The day ticked all our boxes. Warning though, the Alice in Wonderland-inspired Fright Rooms, the biggest installation at the park during the event, are NOT for the faint hearted eg our 3 year old son. Bonnie and I braved it and let’s just say, there were screams and a lot of tight cuddles. I may have even offered to carry her for some of it, to be honest it was selfish reasons. I needed a hug. We were immersed in a world of special effects and spooky illusions. I wasn’t brave enough, but my lovely friend Claire, Founder of Cailyns Mummy went in again to get some footage. I thought I was a determined blogger, but Claire, you smashed it. She is currently pregnant too, triple points!!
Images by Claire from Cailyns Mummy
The team have drawn on inspiration from Hollywood scary movies and have worked with major movie production designer Stevie Hardie to get the fright levels just right for the Scottish audience. Steve, who is based in Los Angeles, California has worked on film franchises such as ‘Hellraiser’ and ‘Star Wars’, and was the designer for horror film ‘Night Breed’ and cult classic ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.
There were SO many fun activities. Led by the park’s own ‘Dangerous Dave’ the kids got nice and gooey at a spooky slime making workshop, there was an outdoor adventure to hunt monsters, follow the trick or treat trail, they got to paint their own animal pet rock to take home and hide. The kids loved building their own bears too, such a nice touch to the day and a special toy for them to keep gets a huge thumbs up. We sure needed a lot of courage but all our wishes and dreams were met.
We loved the pumpkin patch and, on the spooky theme, after Bonnie randomly naming her Unicorn Zoe (a name I have never heard her say), I was delighted to bump into the lovely Zoe from My Little Wildlings. Zoe snapped some beautiful images for us. That girl knows how to work a lens and of course run a fantastic blog and have a good time.
Images by Zoe from My Little Wildlings
Between all the HalloWild banter, the Lion safari, a monkey chilling on the roof of our car and of course the HUGE slide – we 100% had our fix of excitment. Autumn is a beautiful time to visit the Safari Park and I can’t recommend this enough. 10/10 from Mummy Jojo and crew.
Next time I would love to take a boat to Chimp Island and watch the sea lion show. We were spoilt for choice, just wish we had more hours in the day. Blair Drummond Safari Park’s HalloWild runs from 13-28 October and tickets are available now online. Enjoy and please do send me a selfie X
