Hard To Find/Difficult Directions To Zoos

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Blackduiker

Well-Known Member
Can you think of any zoos in your visiting experiences over the years, that you almost gave up on trying to locate? In other words, the directions just didn't seem to be correct? My wife and I had that experience just last year, trying to locate CALM; the California Living Museum, in Bakersfield. Even after getting directions on Mapquest and printing them to take with me. Maybe snowleopard can give his take on finding it, since it was a stop on his family's road trip to California Zoos last year as well. But after some time, and over 100 miles driving, we finally arrived at our destination.

I rank CALM, as easily the #1 most difficult zoo ever for me to find. :confused::o:(:mad:
 
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I concur with the difficulty in locating CALM, and we had to stop and ask for directions on last year's zoo-themed odyssey. I think that it might also be #1 on my list of hard-to-locate zoos.:)
 
Woolly Monkey Sanctuary at Looe in Cornwall. I never did find it.

Columbus Zoo. USA. A shock for a visiting foreigner to discover its located way out of the city with no public transport at that time(1970's) so I was unable to visit.
 
Spaycific'Zoo in France. Miles of occasional signs through country roads and tiny obscure villages later, there it was.
 
Rare Species Conservation Centre. Approached from Deal, fine. Approached from London, you took your chances and prayed for a friendly bystander.
 
Not me, but someone I know. The Wild Animal Sanctuary near Denver, CO. She lives about 45 minutes away and so far has been unable to find it.

Personally, I had trouble with the LA Zoo and Santa Barbara Zoo in California, but was able to find it eventually.
 
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the Malacca Butterfly Gardens. The road signs on the highway point left, right and straight ahead, often simultaneously. I knew exactly where it should have been but couldn't find it and walked around the roads for rather a long time before I gave up.
 
Zoo Montpellier and Zoo St. Martin La Plaine (both France)
Zoo Osnabrueck and Zoo Aschersleben (the last because of a lot of road work at that time of my visit) (both Germany)
Erlebniszoo Eichberg (Switzerland)
Bioparc Valencia (no signs on the freeways, at least when you're approaching from the south)
Zoosafari Pombia (Italy)
Dierenpark Planckendael (Belgium)
Bali Birdpark (Indonesia)
Alma Park Zoo Brisbane (Australia)

For USA, I had never problems to find a zoo, only for Living Desert in Palm Desert it took a little longer.
 
zoomaniac said:
Bali Birdpark (Indonesia)
Alma Park Zoo Brisbane (Australia)
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I tried getting to the Bali Bird Park by bus, failed, and ended up taking a taxi which was dead easy if rather more expensive.

Alma Park I had no problems with. Just a bus from central Brisbane and then a short walk if memory serves me correctly.
 
Blackduiker

azcheetah2 said:
Not me, but someone I know. The Wild Animal Sanctuary near Denver, CO. She lives about 45 minutes away and so far has been unable to find it.

Personally, I had trouble with the LA Zoo and Santa Barbara Zoo in California, but was able to find it eventually.
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Los Angeles being my home zoo, I recommend these directions for out-of-town visitors posted on the zoo's website. Then Mapquest it from your starting point:

Driving Directions - Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens
 
Napoli Zoo in Italy.
I came to Napoli by train. I had zoo adress and accurate map of this part of the city. Zoo should be located about 15 minutes by foot from the station but at this place I find amusment park (closed). I asked some people how to get to the zoo. All of them astonished: "Zoo? in Napoli?". I almost gave up but suddenly I hear lion's roar. Zoo gate was behind amusment park.
 
Santacruz zoo, about an hour's drive south of Bogota was really difficult to find (and took over 3 hours to get there due to normal Sunday congestion on the roads!). Fortunately we weren't driving and our driver had been there before - the place was simply not signposted in any way and you generally had to know where you were going. The drive was spectacular though!

We got lost on the way to Werribee Open Range Zoo (near Melbourne) the first time we visited - but then, we were approaching from the Geelong end and it wasn't well signposted at all!

If we didn't have our GPS, I think finding the San Diego Wild Animal Park (or whatever it is called now), would have been quite difficult - is certainly out of the way, and I didn't remember seeing good signage when we visited (that may have changed now ... or it may have just been the weather - it was about 3 degrees celcius and bucketing down with rain!).
 
Santacruz zoo, about an hour's drive south of Bogota was really difficult to find (and took over 3 hours to get there due to normal Sunday congestion on the roads!). Fortunately we weren't driving and our driver had been there before - the place was simply not signposted in any way and you generally had to know where you were going. The drive was spectacular though!

We got lost on the way to Werribee Open Range Zoo (near Melbourne) the first time we visited - but then, we were approaching from the Geelong end and it wasn't well signposted at all!

If we didn't have our GPS, I think finding the San Diego Wild Animal Park (or whatever it is called now), would have been quite difficult - is certainly out of the way, and I didn't remember seeing good signage when we visited (that may have changed now ... or it may have just been the weather - it was about 3 degrees celcius and bucketing down with rain!).
 
zoomaniac said:
Dierenpark Planckendael (Belgium)
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What kind of difficulty did you had to find this zoo? It's very well signed along the highway, both from Antwerp and Brussels. Even if you came by train, there're signs in the Mechelen railway station to take both bus or boat.
 
@Philipine eagle: We came indeed from Antwerp, but did not use the freeway because we thought that it is closer by overland road. Maybe that was a mistake (or maybe we just missed a sign and became lost because of that).
 
In my area finding the zoo isnt much of a problem but getting to it is if you dont have a car. For example want to go to Joburg zoo but this would involve the following: wait two hours for municipal bus to town (Pretoria), catch gautrain to Joburg, catch gautrain bus half way to zoo. Catch another municipal bus (after waiting), then walking two blocks. Will take me half the day just to get to the zoo, and thats if feeling particularly fit and happy to walk between all the bus stops and stations. On other hand if you have a car the zoo has good signage and is easy enough to find.
 
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