Penn's Cave and Wildlife Park

One Sunday my husband and I decided to just take a day off from everything and go to Penns Cave. This tourist attraction was something I have wanted to see since I was a kid. Well, I am 52 and I finally made it and enjoyed it very much.

Penns Cave and Wildlife Park is in Centre Hall, PA. It's near State College where the Penn State Nittany Lions play. This cavern is one of the only underwater caverns in American that you can visit.

We arrived about 1:30 in the afternoon. You have the option to pay and visit each site or see both sites for a discounted price. I believe we paid about $30 each.

We were scheduled for a 2:00 bus trip through the wildlife park. It was 90 minutes long and very enjoyable. We saw buffalo, Texas Longhorn, donkeys and wild mustang. The Buffalo's were interesting. There was one big bull who's name is Thor. He was beautiful but he kept an eye on us. Watching over his females and the youngsters.

As we went into the woods we were able to see timber wolves. We then stopped to get out and stretch our legs.

We were able to visit different areas with bears, a pair of bob cats and a pair of mountain lions. Each pair of cats are brother and sister. The females are spayed to prevent interbreeding. Although the three bears were black bears the one was a Cinnamon color which is rare but it happens. They were treat to peanuts.

There were whitetail deer with fawns only a week or two old. They were precious. The trip was also very educational as they explained many things about the animals. I knew that a lot of the time the mother deer keeps her distance from the fawn who will just lay in an area and not move. I always believed that was because the mother would go off and eat which was wrong. When the fawns are born they do not have a scent. The mother will hide them and stay off in a distance. This is because she does not want to leave her scent on the baby to attract predators.

There were elk also. One bull elk waded into the water and watched us from the other side of the fish hatchery which was full of trout. He was quite entertaining.

Much of the food that is fed to some of the animals is grown on the acreage. One year they had grown sunflowers. While we were there the main crop was corn.

We were back in time to eat a lunch and get to our next scheduled tour through the caverns at 4:00. The caverns are always 52 degrees so if you'd ever visit you may want to take a jacket.

They had a very nice gift shop and a little restaurant where you could order sandwiches and fries. We each had a bison burger but you could also choose Texas longhorn or just a regular hamburger. I found the bison mest very good.

Walking down the hill to the caverns you could see large fish swimming in the water. As we got closer I thought they were bass but they turned out to be trout waiting for handouts. We were told they would fed once in awhile to show the tourists..

It was different getting into a boat to go into a cavern. First thing you saw were the many large trout hanging around the boat for food. Now that would have been the highlight of the trip to my grandsons. Then as we traveled through the caverns they lit different areas with different colors and pointed out many beautiful sections with the stalactites and stalagmites. Also gave suggestions of what they looked like. My favorite was the groundhog.

As you go through the cavern you come out to a lake where they once again point out the fish hatchery.
The lake spills into Penns Creek which is one of the top ten trout streams in Pennsylvania.
Then you turn and travel through the cavern once again to back where the trip was started.

The tourist sight was very clean and well maintained. I would recommend it to anyone and I may be going back this summer with my grandsons. I will just have to make them leave their fishing rods. NO FISHING ALLOWED.