It’s feeding time at the Zoo

Coming face-to-face with the king of creepy crawlies felt more effective than a cup of coffee at nine on a Saturday morning. Luckily, the tarantulas were behind glass.

My ticket to terror – an enjoyable frisson, rather than hideous horror – was thanks to Santander Cycles’ Summer of Cycling event at the ZSL London Zoo. For an amazing hour before the gates of the zoo officially opened, we were given a tour by ZSL and Santander staff, whizzing around the paths of the zoo on the bright red Santander Cycles to witness the early-morning routine of the resident creatures.

Once we’d adjusted our seat heights and selected the right gear, we headed to the B.U.G.S exhibit. The tarantulas were only part of stage one in the B.U.G.S experience. There was no glass separating us and the arachnids when we stepped into In With the Spiders, the only walk-through spider exhibit in the whole of Europe. Golden orb spiders hung overhead on their meter-wide webs and social spiders weaved away together in the corner of the room.

The next stop was a quick ride away: the ever-adorable meerkats at their morning feeding time and, in the neighbouring enclosure, the ring-tailed lemurs that sunbathed in yoga poses. One particularly playful lemur managed to push open the strip curtains and hop through to the room next door.

Passing by a hallway of sleeping owls, we climbed up a flight of stairs to be greeted by three giraffes. As they chewed through their breakfast leaves, we gazed at them at their eye-level, astonished both by their eyelashes and the absence of crowds of people.

Parking our bikes in front of the Penguin Beach, our guide introduced us to two Humboldt penguin chicks in the penguin nursery, where they were still learning to swim in the shallow pool. We watched the feeding from the side of the main pool (the largest penguin pool in the UK), and as soon as the frozen block of fish hit the water, the fully-grown penguins stopped preening their feathers to dive after the food, outstripping stray herons by their incredible dive speeds.

As a souvenir for the experience, we picked up our Santander gift packs, which included a cycling top and plenty of cycling information. It also came with a free hot drink token for The Terrace Restaurant – a perfect boost for the morning before we set off to explore the rest of the zoo; though this time, alas, on foot.