Whipsnade Zoo sleepover safari: a night in the bush - just above Luton There were eight lodges set among trees on the hillside, new and smelling of fresh timber, shaped like elongated beehives with double beds, pull-out sofa beds for children, tea and coffee, shampoo and soap for the nearby showers, heaters and tiny verandas with rope surrounds. Mine was called Wolf Lodge. There was a double gate to keep out "free roamers" - wallabies, many with joeys, a sort of bionic guinea pig called a mara and peacocks with cries like banshees - and the café nearby stayed open all night with hot drinks on tap. Because of the weather, the sunset safari really was a sunset safari. When Whipsnade was set up on a farm near Luton in 1931, the aim was to have an open zoo, so the animals occupy 300 acres but there is another 300 acres of parkland. With a little imagination, it looks like the Maasai Mara after unusually good rains. We chugged through Africa, descending every so often to meet its denizens: the bongos - browsing antelope from the central highlands, toffee-coloured with narrow white stripes and lyre horns - milling around like a bowl of Victorian sweets; the meerkats, perched on a concrete termite mound, as charming and alert as their television cousins; waterbuck, oryx, the lazy lions. Next up was Asia, as the sun flamed into an orange ball and sank into the clutches of the oak and beech trees, sending the temperature falling to most un-Asian levels. A green woodpecker cackled rudely as we admired hog deer and fallow deer and swamp deer and lots of other deer, drifting serenely and identically across the landscape. There were stumpy Przewalski's horses from Mongolia, the only truly wild horse left on Earth; Bactrian camels with wobbly double humps like mountain ranges on the move; a pointy-lipped baby Asian rhino, 13 stones when born instead of the seven his mother might have hoped for; and a sort of creamy purebred Middle Eastern wild ass called an onager that can take off at 43mph like a speeding Ottoman sofa. Things are surprisingly tiring at that altitude. We were in need of the huge barbecue prepared by the catering staff and eaten in the freezing air, as people held their phones up to identify heavenly bodies in the night sky (Venus, Jupiter, Mars and a crescent moon the colour of Edam, should you ask). But the best was yet to come: we were given torches and taken for the night walk home. Wavering beams picked out flamingos the colour of tinned salmon stirring up the pond water with their feet - one, mooching backwards, got the Michael Jackson Moonwalking Award - and vulpine eyes gleamed as Luton's only wolf pack took stock of our approach. Rooks high in the trees woke each other up, chattering nervously as we passed below. Then, through a mercifully strong barrier, that cold, gold stare: lions, no longer cuddly escapees from Harrods' toy department, but silent predators, assessing our snack potential. It all kicked off when Spike, the dominant male, lost his temper over some unintended slight and took off after one of the younger males. The ferocity and the speed of it were shocking. Later, we all leapt out of our skins in the viewing enclosure as two muscular bodies crashed against the thick glass. Next morning, all was peace. All was also fog: a large cloud had crashed into the Chilterns and we peered at brown bears and irritable chimps through wreaths of mist. It suited Wild Whipsnade, an area containing the animals that once roamed chilly, damp Britain, from the lynx and the wild boar to snarling, sumptuously coated wolverines that used to drop out of trees on unsuspecting deer and can find (and eat) frozen stored prey under 6ft of snow. The final treat was trundling past the Grade II listed Elephant House, made of prefabricated white concrete by the architect Bernard Lubetkin, doyen of groovy zoo design in the Thirties. I felt chastened by my ignorance, delighted by the beauty of the landscape and deliciously terrified by the memory of the unique feeling - however illusory - that I was about to be a predator's lunch. Whipsnade essentials ZSL Whipsnade Zoo is in Dunstable, Bedfordshire LU6 2LF (01582 872171). Lookout Lodge experiences (020 7449 6269; zsl.org) run from April until October and cost £115 to £189 per person, including free parking, sunset tour, barbecue, torchlit zoo walk, night in a Lookout Lodge, full English breakfast and morning tour plus full-day entry to the zoo. Family nights are held over weekends and school holidays and children must be more than five years old. There are still a few places left for ZSL London Zoo's first "Luxury Camping" experience, for adults only, in May (020 7449 6363; zsl.org).