PEAK WILDLIFE PARK | Peak District Kids

Come face to face with exotic and endangered animals from across the world, including penguins, lemurs, meercats, zebras, deer and lots of farm animals at Peak Wildlife Park! It’s one of the top days out in the Peak District. Kids will love the walk through areas where you can venture inside animal enclosures, and they will especially love petting the farm animals.

This isn’t a normal zoo to see the ‘big five’. Instead it is an immersive experience to enjoy walking amongst less ferocious animals. Its a fantastic day out for little ones especially as they can be hands on with some of the tamer residents

Peak Wildlife Park is just 1km outside the National Park boundary near Leek in Staffordshire.

Pre-booking tickets

If you do not have an annual pass, you must pre-book a time slot. Once you’ve booked your time slot you can then go ahead an book your tickets online.

Click here to book your Peak Wildlife Park tickets online. 2025 prices are:

Day entry tickets:

Adult (17 to 64 years old) – £20.95
Child (2 to 16 years old) – £18.95
Under 2s – FREE
Senior Citizens from 65 and students with valid card photo ID – £18.95
Carers – FREE

Annual pass:

Adult (17 to 64 years old)- £64.95
Child (2 to 16 years old) – £55.95
Senior Citizens from 65 and students with valid card photo ID – £60.95

Our visit to Peak Wildlife Park

On our most recent visit we picked a rather wet and drizzly day. But we went prepared with rain jackets and wellies! You will be outside for your entire visit, so make sure you check the weather and go prepared.

We arrived just before our booked time of 11 am. Finding a parking space was straight forward and it’s just a short walk to the entrance.

As soon as you walk through the gates, there are markers on the ground so that everyone keeps 2 meters apart. Although there was no queue to show our pre-booked tickets at the counter.

One way system

A one way system leads visitors around the park. Follow the blue footprints painted on the ground, and then later the yellow ones. There are also signs up as reminders of the one-way system.

There is a one-way system around the park. However, there were a couple of occasions when it wasn’t clear which way to go. One was with the ramp up to the penguin viewing platform. There is no sign to lead you up there, and I was unsure if it was ‘allowed’. I was thinking there must be another place on the one way system to bring you to the viewing platform, but I didn’t want us to miss out on seeing the penguins if that wasn’t the case. I asked some other mums coming down and they said that they had just been up and down the platform to see the penguins, so we followed suit. The penguins had all congregated next to the viewing platform during our visit, so I’m so pleased we took the detour to see them! This was indeed the right way to go!

Secondly, when you enter the walk-in enclosures it’s not always clear which way to walk around. There is often a circular path to exit the opposite side, and you can walk left or right. Some enclosures have staff on hand to tell you which way to walk around, but there were a few occasions when people were walking in opposite directions to then converge. However, it was easy enough to find space to pass each other.

Eating

We took a picnic, but that went quickly and the boys were still hungry (aren’t they always?) The full cafe menu at Peak Wildlife Park is available using their click and collect online service. I made an order for pizza and gingerbread men the day before, and it was waiting for us at our booked time of 12:30! Plus, there was no queue to wait.

The pizza was delicious!

In this restaurant area (near the entrance) there is also an indoor family room with tables, a baby changing room, toilets, and an outside picnic area with benches nicely spaced out. We packed our Peak District Pacmat picnic mat to use as a tablecloth.

Play areas

The climbing frame and huge bouncy castle were lots of fun!

The climbing area got rather busy around 1pm, so we left and played with the bunnies next door. When we returned a little later, the boys had the climbing frame to themselves.

Toilets

Toilets were open with additional toilets spread around the park. They were clean during our visit.

How long should you plan to spend at Peak Wildlife Park?

We arrived at 11 am and were there for a three hours. We spent 1.5 hours in the main section of the park with the penguins, lemurs, meercats, zebra (although these were in the distance in a separate enclosure) and the African Village animals (petting the goats and sheep). This was the perfect amount of time to then arrive to collect our pre-ordered pizza at 12:30pm.

After lunch, we spent just over an hour in the play area and petting the giant rabbits before heading home. Be warned parents, the exit is through the gift shop!

Final thoughts on Peak Wildlife Park

This is a great day out and a nice change of pace to the family walks and bike rides if you’re visiting the Peak District. The park isn’t too big, so little ones won’t get too tired at all walking around. The penguins and meercats are always the most entertaining, and being able to pet the farm animals is lovely.

Book an early arrival time to see the animals when it’s most quiet, and to avoid the play area around lunch time when it gets busy. And make sure you pre-order your pizza – it’s delicious!