Earlier into our stay in County Carlow, we took advantage of a very sunny day and visited the Secret Valley Wildlife Park. The highlight were the Capybaras, the girls were very excited to see the worlds largest rodent in person.

Secret Valley Wildlife Park is a privately owned nature reserve. It has some of the typical farm animals like ponies, donkeys and rabbits but it’s also home to a lot of rescued primates like lemurs, macaques and tamarins. (which I surprisingly didn’t take any photos of.) We really enjoyed the animals talks that the zookeepers did for the primates. It’s eye opening to hear about the awful conditions some monkeys end up in due to the exotic pet trade in Europe. It’s not really an issue in Australia due to our strict animal quarantine laws but many people in Europe buy small primates as pets and quickly realises how inappropriate they are and then abandoned them. So it’s nice to see a place like Secret Valley Wildlife Park providing a home and caring for them.

We also enjoyed hearing about the otters, meerkats and porcupine. And of course petting the bunnies and seeing the prairie dogs. There is a great cafe onsite with a big indoor inflatable jumping castle / obstacle course that the girls loves.

The grounds were really, large with a big kids playground and we were also given a scavenger hunt worksheet were the kids had to locate various different types of trees.

The girls really love animals, so any experience like this is always a great day out. We did skip the London Zoo and the Dublin Zoo due to the prices and the fact that major zoos can features very similar animals. But Secret Valley Wildlife Park was a great smaller location were we are able to see and learn a lot about the animals. We’d totally recommend visiting, especially if you have a day with lovely sunny weather.