San Antonio Zoo, Texas

With the Mother in Law’s time in town coming to an end we decided to use the last day of my holiday to go on a little Road Trip down to San Antonio.  Stopping half way down to jump in for some lunch at iHop (we all ate lunch for less than $50 which is always nice!).

Our destination for the day was San Antonio Zoo.  I had read some reviews which were not flattering of the zoo but it’s relatively high rating on Yelp and some of the really nice stuff people wrote about it meant we wanted to see it for ourselves.  I have to say I understand peoples objections to Zoo’s but I do feel they have a place today especially for conservation purposes.  So i’ll stay away from the politics and stick to the day out and how it was for the kids.

We got there early afternoon (around 1.30pm) and it was a pleasant (if not warm) afternoon.  The first thing that struck me was the price – We were used to visiting Edinburgh Zoo (Calderpark being my first zoo experience but it’s been closed for decades) which charges around 16.50 GBP for entrance for an adult so it can be a pricey day out.  San Antonio Zoo prices are $12.00 for adults (Significantly cheaper).  It is smaller than Edinburgh but it did have a bunch of animals which were new to us.  North American and European zoo’s are going to be different but it was interesting to see the differences up close.

Anyway – We got a map as we went in and planned out what we wanted to see and the best route to do this…then ignored that completely and jumped from animal to animal and reptile house to aquarium as the fancy took us!  We were in till it closed at 6pm so it was a long day but we were kept busy and interested the whole time.

Starting out at the fabulously colored Flamingos was a great start although finding out that they are no longer native to the US was disappointing…I have been lied to by my Miami Vice titles.

Next up were the bears which they had a few of…the American Black bear was not for coming out see us but still pretty cool.  travelling round the Hippos, White Rhino and Tigers was pretty cool.  The Lions though were a highlight as they were just sitting around their cages when we arrived but after we got there they started playing about then the male lion decided that he would have a bit of a roar…it was pretty damn impressive to see!

They had some excellent injection molding machines to create your own souvenirs which were pretty nice and cheap and the kids liked the early 3D printers!  At $2 they were a pretty cheap little keepsake.

As we left for the day we stopped in at the Aquarium almost as an afterthought.  I am so glad we did.  there were some pretty amazing looking fish in there but they also hit all the kids ‘food groups’ when it came to cool things that live in the sea – Jellyfish, Sharks, Piranhas and electric eels!  All very impressive.

This was worth the visit and a good low price day out for the kids.

We finished off the day with a quick trip into San Antonio (10 mins drive) to see the Alamo (so that my mother in law could say she had been there!) and then the 1.5 hr journey back to Round Rock.  A pretty long day all in all as we arrived back about 10pm but a great day out and at a pretty low cost too!

Mount Bonnell and in and around Austin

One of our favourite places to visit for a quick day trip is Mount Bonnell.  This is the highest place in Austin and is just a very short trip from the city centre or from our house in Round Rock it is a 15 min drive.  The views are spectacular when you get up there right across to Austin and further up the river.  It’s a wee (and I mean wee) hike to get up there (about 70 steps we counted).

There is not a lot to do up there once you get up there other than take in the spectacular view but this was where General George Armstrong Custer (yep that one!) use to bring his wife for romantic picnics before he met his fate at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Well worth a visit and on a clear day (most days are clear here in Austin) you get such an impressive view of the surrounding countryside!

Afterwards we headed down to the Hula Hut for dinner which is only about a 5-10 minute drive down the hill and sits on the Lake.  It’s usually busy because of the impressive location and we did have to wait about 10 minutes for a table but they do have a nice system where you can access an app whilst you wait and see what you want and when your table is ready the app tells you it is ready and you can be seated at that point.

We were not feeling adventurous that day and all 5 of us had a burger of some description but they were all a little different.  I went with the Hawaiian and it was pretty tasty.  The place itself has an indoor and outdoor area and we sat outdoors (despite it being January) and enjoyed it.

After that we headed to downtown to get a photo with the very famous Austin mural…this is a tourist must see and we got there as a bunch of other tourists arrived…bad timing but we waited for 5 mins then got the shot we came for!

That was a quick trip though and it was such a nice day that our next stop was Barton Springs pool.  In the summer time it’s a superb place to go swimming and the temperature year round is around 63 degrees so people were in swimming even in January!

It was free to wander round (although there is a small fee in the summer time) and it really is nice.  In the summer time coming down just to watch the people jumping off the diving board is worth the admission.  

The area around the pool is worth wandering round and they have a train which goes round the park plus a small kiosk for sno-cones or light food. In the summer time very close to here they have shows in the auditorium area and they have been great when we’ve gone along.

A lot shoe horned into a shorter day for today but we really enjoyed ourselves and if you only have an afternoon to spend in Austin this is one way to spend it.