On the way back from San Antonio to Austin, we came across a billboard for Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, and we made a spontaneous decision to visit.
Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch is a drive-through safari park, where most animals roam freely, and you drive through their habitats. You even get to toss food for them to eat (you buy food upon buying your tickets - I highly suggest buying only 1 bag of food, as it goes a long way; we bought 3 bags of food for each of the kids, and we had so much leftover! Even other guests were trying to give their leftovers to us).
It was a bit of a gamble, however, as while making the detour, I looked up reviews online and almost all previous visitors said early morning is the best time to visit (we were visiting in the late afternoon), since the animals tend to sleep during the heat of the day.
Turns out, we ended up seeing lots of wild animals!
We saw giraffes, sable antelopes, axis deer, and so much more!
Mostly the deer were hungry - other animals we tossed food at showed little to no interest.
The entire drive took a little over an hour. A lot of the timing depends on how many animals are up and about, as you have to drive very slowly, and it also depends on how slow the car in front of you is (eg if the car stops for a while to feed animals or waits for them to move around and there is no room to pass the car).
What I did find a little disturbing, however, was how so many families had kids perched on windows of their vehicles (yes, windows) as they drove around, so half their bodies were hanging outside. I thought this was pretty dangerous in terms of being around wildlife and the possibility of the kids falling out the window.
In any case, our kids had a lot of fun seeing all the different types of animals roaming around, especially when they approached the car.
It was a pricey visit for admission, but worth it in terms of the memories!
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