Worth Leaving Town For: A Day Trip to Sequim’s Olympic Game Farm
Story & images by: James Fields
Sequim is day-trip-able with short ferry ride from Edmonds to Kingston and then a beautiful drive through the Olympic Peninsula Forests.
Earlier this year, I heard there was a drive-through safari park here in Washington. This information completely blew my mind. For some reason, I had thought drive-through safari parks were something that only existed elsewhere, on different continents and in countries that had large wild mammals wandering about. As I looked into it, I saw that they had all kinds of animals, from farm animals to local wildlife to lions and tigers.
I knew this would be a great adventure for my wife and me and began plotting a trip for us to drive to this magical land and feed animals from our car.
The Olympic Game Farm is out on the peninsula in Sequim. The quickest route there requires a ferry ride and a beautiful drive through lush forests and over the floating Hood Canal Bridge. On the day of our adventure, we arrived in the parking lot and took a little car break, stretching our legs and walking around. We were greeted by some fun signs telling us not to chase, taunt, or bother the peacocks, and warning us that our clothes and car were about to get slobbered all over.
After a few minutes, we got back in the car and drove up to the gate. Here we paid our entrance fee, which is good for as many visits as you’d like to do that day, and we also bought some bread (no outside food allowed). The Olympic Game Farm has several sections that you can drive through, each one outfitted with cattle grids so that the animals will not follow the cars through to the other areas.
The first major area that you can feed the animals in is full of all kinds of farmyard livestock: cows, llamas, horses, and even a zebra. It also has some deer, but we had a bit more trouble getting them to come up to the car to eat our bread. They were a bit more skittish, and after dealing with how aggressive the llamas were, I can see why! The llamas are big, strong, and eager for food!
The second section was full of bears, all penned in and behind an electric fence. The bears were patiently watching as cars drove by to see who would send them a bread frisbee. It was so adorable to watch them saunter over to where the bread landed and have themselves a little snack.
After the bear section, you drive through the lions, which are all in cages with signs telling you not to feed them. This part was a bit less exciting, because having a giant animal stick its head in your car is really why you go to a safari drive-through, right?
The last enclosure is a double feature and is by far the largest area of the game farm. The first section of it is full of moose, which are alarmingly big. They towered over our small Prius and still managed to stoop their necks down and into our car. One of them stole a large amount of bread from our center console.
After passing the moose, you enter the section with bison, caribou, and other kinds of deer. This is the place we wanted to spend most of our bread feeding these amazing creatures, but somehow, the farm section and a greedy moose took most of our bread. We went through a second time, determined to save a lot of bread for the bison, and we did a better job, but there are so many animal friends to meet that it’s hard to keep much back.
Ten out of ten, would go again!
Visit the Olympic Game Farm
1423 Ward Rd // Sequim, WA
Open Daily (exlc. holidays) >> Details Here
James works for a local Everett-based company and enjoys board games, hiking, and food. You can find him playing Kubb at a local park or getting lost in the woods.
