This was my second visit to the South Lakes Wild Animal Park, the previous visit was about six years earlier. During this time there have been substantial changes to the Park's buildings and estate – you get the sense that there's a master plan that's gradually unfolding.

The South Lakes Wild Animal Park is situated in the south west corner the English Lakes peninsula just outside Dalton-in-Furness, which is a pleasant 30 miles drive from the M6 motorway. Dalton has its own railway station, but check the Park's website (www.wildanimalpark.co.uk) for your travel information. The car park is free and outside the zoo, although you can return to the car should you need to.

The Park is on a hillside with a moderate gradient, with extensive step-free routes to make it accessible to all. This is an open-air experience for animals and public alike. Around the big cat enclosures – African Lion and two sub-species of Tiger – there are raised walkways where from your raised platform you can see across to a big cats' raised platform – without visual interference.

There are several distinctive features about this animal park, notably the free ranging animals and birds in the Australasian section and the mixed species enclosures. Species from the same geographical area such as Giraffe, White Rhinoceros and Hamadryas Baboons share a large paddock with raised viewing platform to meet the Giraffes at eye-level. The Pygmy Hippopotamus co-exist with the Mandrills and in a large walk-though aviary their are many species including South American Macaws, Andean Condor and King Vulture. The most stunning mix was the Lowland Tapir, Capybara, Asian Otter (breaking the same 'geographical area' rule) with Andean Bear. That said, the Bears are largely vegetarian and were confined to their indoor quarters at the time of my visit.

The upper slope of the park has firstly a free-ranging Lemur area and then a walk thorough Australian exhibit. Whilst the marsupials, and there are many species at the park, kept their distance, the same can't be said of emus who blocked you at a gateway or on a narrow path. Getting this close to nature and Emus in particular, isn't within everyone's comfort zone. With the eye-level view of the big cats on their raised platforms and emus, you'd question whether this is one step too far for a barrier-free zoo.

There are many detailed instructions for the visitor to observe and signage is generally good. There are keeper talks – although why they refer to monkeys as 'these guys' is a tad off-putting. 

With the Park's outreach work, particularly in Tiger conservation, the park delivers a strong educational message on wildlife and its conservation.  There's an active and major contribution to the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) to strengthen the message. Unusually, the Park isn't a BIAZA member. With the chance to see some unusual species in mixed company and to get up close to others, it's worth a visit so you can make your own mind up on this Park.