Monday April 29 (Lake Waters to Big Cat Rescue to home)

We had a lazy start not checking out until 12 noon, after a breakfast that was provided by the hotel.

We must have missed a turn as the printed intructions mentioned road numbers that we could not find as we were driving along. I did manage, using my IPad, to stop us going the wrong way that would have seen us on an expressway possibly for a while. So Jackie programmed our destination into the car's GPS and we were finally on our way, lol!

We arrived at our destination, Big Cat Rescue, just north of Tampa, an hour before the tour time of 3 pm. I changed into my walking shoes and went to the gift shop to by a T-Shirt and fridge magnets. Then I joined Jackie downstairs to wait for the tour. We watched a film about a magnificent lion who had been part of the BCR for some years but was now no longer alive. We also saw a couple of others about different animals at the BCR.

We were soon on our way with volunteer Denny to take us round and tell us about the animals. We all had separate wireless receivers with an earpiece.

It was very interesting and they house about 70 cats from Severals and Savannahs to Bobcats, Leopard, Jaguar, Cougars and Tigers. They have all been rescued from some sort of desperate and/or abusive situation. 

One example: a customer paid $15,000 for a 7 week old Savannah kitten. After a year or so she had a separate room added to her house at the cost of $10,000 because he was becoming very difficult. 

At the age of five she contacted BCR to see if they would take him as she could not handle him any more. Her arms were covered in scratches and scars! His name is Beacher and he is a very sad case as he has been brought up with humans and now has no contact!!

There is a small cat vacation/rotation area where they have a chance to explore a larger area. Each cat has its own enclosed area with differnt levels for them to explore as well as "caves" where they can hide if they wish to. 

Two cougars who came in were bonded so they have actually been left together. 

An area of several enclosures is surrounded by a fence and there are walkways so the employees can move between them to feed and check up on them. Many of the animals were sleeping as it was a very warm afternoon but we did see quite a few and some were active.

As we walked down to one end of the BCR, we saw the vacation/rotation area for the big cats. They spend two weeks in here and as it is 2.5 acres so the cats can run around in it. 

Many of them spend the first few days hiding as they are not used to large spaces. Currently a white tiger is in residence! This area is part of a 10 acre area that BCR purchased a few years ago.

There was talk of a development and BCR contacted the owners who wanted $1.5M for the land.

There was no way this would happen but then a depression hit and there were other issues
including that BCR had some of the access rights, lol. Eventually, BCR were able to purchase the land for $125,000, a much more reasonable price!

Just beyond this area and right at the end is tiger that hates humans and is very aggressive, even though she is in an enclosure she will try and attack. So no visitors are allowed down that end.

As we walked back to the exit we passed Kitten Cabana. Each day, kittens from local fosters come out for the day for socialisation and they get lots of petting as swell, lol! 

They have a large catio area and all we saw were happily playing together or resting. We were asked to publicise the information about the Big Cat Public Safety Act which has been before congress for ages. It seems that more traction is happening as people ring their local legislator's office, of course people have to be American citizens! There is also an area covered with tiles, each one depicting a cat that has been saved!

By this time it was after 4.30 pm and we decided to get an early tea at a restaurant at the end of the drive to BCR. Hopefully, by the time we have eaten the traffic would be lighter! We had to drive onto the road and take two legal U-turns to reach it, lol! it was called Smokey Bones Bar and Fire Grill. They had a great menu and to my pleasant surprise I saw a French Dip under the sandwiches. I ordered this and it was delicious, the beef was very tender, the server did forget the Jus, lo!! Jackie had a burger and said that was also delicious. 

As we made our way onto the road the traffic was not too bad, we basically followed the same route home that we had driven over on. It took us passed Lake Wales and onto the Florida Turnpike until we were not too far from home when we picked up the I95 at Yeehaw Jct, such a funny sounding name, lol There was another gorgeous sunset, of course it was behind us so I took some photos through the wing mirror, lol!!

We arrived home just after 10pm, very good going, helped by the traffic being much lighter the further we travelled. Jackie must have been very tired with all the driving over the last couple of days, I know I was tired but it was an excellent trip.

The video at the end is of Priya the tiger!