The concept behind Zoo Lates at the London Zoo is that the adults get to be free of the little kids to enjoy the Zoo in relative peace and quiet. Plus, with the temperatures being a bit cooler, in theory at least, the animals will be less lethargic and we would have more opportunity to see them. Throw in cocktails, market stall food and a silent disco and you can really party.

Tonight I met up with Su, Shahid and a bunch of Shahid’s friends and I was very amused to find that everyone was acting like a little kid! Nothing was holding anyone’s attention for very long and we were flitting around from one zoo enclosure to another as soon as something caught someone’s attention. Very ironic.

It was definitely a lot cooler in the evening and I was also looking forward to seeing the bed-time rituals of all the animals. I’d heard that one year people got to see a hippo having its teeth brushed! Unfortunately for us the animals were pretty quiet and in what seemed like a bed-time mood already. Well, the big headline animals such as the lions and tigers at any rate.

I had a sighting of a pygmy hippo, but not getting its teeth brushed 🙁

Have you ever sen a white echidna? These creatures were very odd looking!

At the zoo they also have a farm area that allows interaction with the animals including feeding. The llamas and alpacha were happy to see us. I was pleased to see they had anti-germ soap everywhere to wash your hands afterwards.

The most exciting animal sighting was the komodo dragon which was in the process of eating a whole live chicken. Greedy little thing tried to swallow the chicken whole and even after about 20 minutes it hadn’t made much progress on it. We left it to eat in peace.

We had a brief sighting of one gorilla but he wasn’t doing anything too thrilling and soon wandered off out of our sight.

Having had enough of animals the “kids” and I headed over to where the party was happening – the food stalls and the Silent Disco. I have to hand it to the London Zoo, they’d arrange a pretty good range of foods for our enjoyment ranging from American grill, to spit roasts, to falafels, to curries, to South African brai etc. It was very good. The only complaint some of the lines were very slow.

The Silent Disco was a must to work off our food and boy it was fun. The enclosure for the Silent Disco was pretty small so it soon got quickly crowded. The music was good and we had two channels to choose from. The DJ, however, had to keep telling us to keep the singing down as the Zoo animals were sleeping. Hmmm … at about 10 minutes before it was going to wrap up the heavens opened. We’d been lucky the rain had held off until then to be honest. Some people braved the rains but we took off and sought shelter at one of Gordon Ramsay’s gastropubs just down the road.

Overall I did enjoy Zoo Lates as a concept, it was good to be visiting the animals at a different time of day, and I enjoyed the food and Silent Disco.