By With the pandemic and everything going on I am making this conscious effort with my husband to ensure that the kids do not miss out on exploring places. We simply want to drive home the fact that you can still take the kids places on a budget and let them experience environments outside of the home and school. I shared our experience when we went to Fort Prinzenstein all the way in 2017 but they were very young and couldn’t recall the experience.
My first visit to the Zoo was when I had a school essay back in Primary school on the topic, “My visit to the Zoo.” My dad of blessed memory on hearing this ensured we went to the Accra Zoo to have the firsthand experience so I could write out my essay very well. I remember an ape or baboon called Lucy even up to this day. It was an unforgettable experience! I wanted the same experience for my kids and was quite sad when the Zoo was moved to Kumasi, however some of the animals were kept in Accra (most people are not aware of this).
So here goes, a personal review of our visit to the Accra Zoo.
Location: Within the Achimota Forest
Damage: GHS24 for the 4 of us
Road: It’s about a 3-4 minutes drive from the entrance of the Achimota Forest. Access road is a bit dusty and would need some works to be done on it. In my 6 year old daughter’s own words, “Daddy why are we driving in this creepy place?” hahahahaha
Opening hours: Mondays to Sundays between 9am and 4:30pm
Recommendation: Go with a car or anything that makes it easier to transport yourself unless you psych yourself to have a zoo visit and a walking exercise. In that case wear sneakers. The lions are kept in a separate location and that takes between 20-30 minutes of walking.
What we saw:
Task for the kids: Let them know they will be seeing real animals and encourage them to pay attention because they would draw whatever they saw or the favourite part of their entire experience when they get home. It gives you an opportunity to see things from their perspective too.
Overall impression
It was beautiful to see the kids experience real life animals. They enjoyed every bit of it!
It was also quite a challenge having to capture images because of the netted cages (you really need to zoom in through the gaps in the cages).
It would have been so cool to have a signage with Accra Zoo boldly displayed. It would certainly make a nice background picture and help create the awareness of its existence when visitors post these pics on social media.
An additional revenue source could be generated by shuttling visitors through the zoo especially for those who come without any means of transport. The whole forest has a safari feel which makes me think the current location of the Zoo is highly under utilised. It makes me believe some of the animals were just dumped there to ensure Accra had a zoo. For a better Zoo experience I will advice you try out the Kumasi Zoo (It’s next on our places to go list!). This Accra Zoo is simply put, a “desert” zoo.
Have you visited the Accra zoo recently? What was your experience?
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Citi News Focus: Accra’s forgotten Zoo in Achimota forest ⏬⏬⏬
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