Silent and Dokk's trip
Sun, Oct 1st, 2006
posted by SilentSearch

I finally talked DOKK into going out to the old Lion Country Safari (International Wildlife Park) for a look around. I don’t think he cares much for my trail blazing as I tend to take him cross country. On the way in, we came across a dude with a single shot shotgun, I figure a poacher. He was leaving as we were going in and we didn’t see hide nor hair of him again. There were some hunters to the west, probably hunting dove so we didn’t get all the was to the main entrance or parking area.

Was a hot, sunny windless day and we didn’t make the entire park. But we did manage to find some interesting things that weren’t already in the data base.

First, the best way that we found in, is a road between the bridges on Lone Star Parkway. You will find a berm as a barrier but a road has been made to the right to bypass it and you can drive on in.

We found several fences cross the site so occasionally you will have to find a hole to get through. If you manage to find the park road, it does a lot of winding. I left my printout of the place so I had to rely on my gps to get us back to the trucks.

We found the lagoon with the boat, a stage, and this place that looked like the old “La’Salle’s River Ride” at Six Flags. Was a concrete ditch with a 18 inch center channel in it (I suppose to keep the boat in place). DOKK thinks it was the old alligator show or something like that. Couple places along this ditch I call the “Grotto” and we ran across several small sheds and cages/pens. The coordinates for some of the places are below.

Grotto#1 32 46.360N 097 00.469W
Grotto#2 32 46.379N 097 00.355W
Lagoon 32 46.403N 097 00.631W
Stage 32 46.335N 097 00.544W
Cage#1 32 46.370N 097 00.427W
Cage#2 32 46.379N 097 00.369W
Shed 32 46.378N 097 00.352W

After lots of walking, we (or I) called it a day and went home. Windows live local shows some structures still around so we may go back when it’s cooler.