I started the day at a fairly reasonable time, given the 1
hour distance between Flamingoland and my home, resulting in us, somehow being
the first there. Luckily my brother managed to recognise some of the
TowersStreeters, or else we would have been stood outside the entrance all day
long.
We rode Mumbo Jumbo first, which I do love apart from that
stupid hang time which as you may have guessed I have learnt to hate, I like
the faster roller coasters over slow inverting roller coasters (yes call me
strange if you have to, I’m used to it by now, and this won’t be the last time
you will, I assure you). After that, we
were on to Flip Flop (as the later TSers rode Mumbo Jumbo), which as much as I
like the quirky theming with the water bursting out of funnels, and a beached
shark included, oh and not to forget the silly little forehead-rests on the restraints,
I find the ride itself extremely nauseating, this I find not during the actual
sequence, but in the slowing down at the end. Then we met those later TSers and
all bundled into the Kumali queue, resulting in a few murmured introductions,
something about Pirelli tyres and I’m sure a lot of other nonsense that I
wouldn’t want to bore you with. I think the general consensus of Kumali was simply
“Ow”, for some it was the head, for me personally it was my shoulders and my
back. Then we took a wander around the front of the park, passing Hero (in test
mode) as we went, which was still causing Mark, who had never been to the north
before, to be absolutely flabbergasted by the Health and Safety in Yorkshire. Then,
onto Zooom! Which continued to spark discussions all day, with it’s ridiculous
number of vowels, and strange need for punctuation within the name. The ride
itself was immensely underwhelming, to the point that I think the most
satisfied rider was Will, whose satisfaction was down to purely gaining yet
another credit. What’s next? Ahh Velocity, on which I think I suitably
astounded Will, with my claims of the roughness being at a minimal level, to
which I got a reply which consisted of the words ‘personal airbags’, and I was
no longer trusted as an accurate judge of roughness, especially after claiming
my ride on Furius Baco (at Port Aventura in Spain) was fairly smooth.
Lunch was spent in a dark place where we ate sandwiches that
to Will’s misery did not contain Bacon, enough of that and we’ll move onto
Little Monsters, by far the best ride in the park for me, it is thrilling and
intense beyond all levels, and was only improved by the fact that the UV light
made everyone’s teeth glow, and Will’s look of utter disgust and underwhelmment
(not sure that’s a word, but ummm, ahh well) throughout the entire ride. After
this we moved onto the new area which goes by the name of ‘Dino-stone park’,
which contains a few ‘exciting’ Zamperlas. Twistosaurus was our first port of
call, on which we had frankly beautiful renditions of ‘We love you Roland, we
do’ and ‘Should have bought a Mack’. We had a particularly memorable moment on
Dino Roller when a train packed of fully grown ‘children’ caused the train to
struggle up the lift hill and roll back into the station, where we were then
reprimanded and told that we had to have one-per-car. Pterodactyl was
particularly amusing for me, as all but Will and I managed to find a seat, we
were preparing to wait in the queue when the ride assistant informed us there
was a seat free, so as Will had been left to sit on his own a number of times I
opted to take the seat myself and laugh at him being alone again. On sitting in
my seat Sam decided to follow suit of a previous (not too bad looking) rider and
take his top off and then proceeded to ask me to follow his example, after a
quick “No” from me and a shout of “SHE’S SIXTEEN!” from Hayden, whilst I was still laughing at the request, a sheepish
looking Sam then apologised. Half of us then decided to have a go on Sky Flyer where
I amused both Hayden and the half that had remained on the ground by screaming
the words “I’m going to die” for the entirety of the ride. After an attempt to
go on The Lost River Ride we saw the queue and decided to head off to eat
instead.
The evening meal at the Harvester was an eye opener for me,
as I had never dined at a Harvester before. The moments that stood out for me were
Sam and Will ringing us to inform us all that they were going the wrong way and
after 5 postcodes being created by us all we finally googled to find the
correct postcode so they could join us for what turned out to be a delightful
meal. I recall commenting on Sam’s brother-like abilities much to the amusement
of Will and finally when Sam and I decided to share a sundae, this turned out
to be buying separate sundaes and giving them to others to finish off.
The next day dawned and Lightwater Valley was next on the
Menu. Me and my brother had arrived, and although I had added a few from the meet
on Facebook, I had neglected to get their numbers and we realised fairly
quickly that we would have no idea where they were, it turned out that someone
had overslept. After waiting… a while for everyone to arrive my brother left me
to sit on a bench by myself looking like a loner whilst he went to greet
everyone. Once everyone had arrived and
I had grumped a suitable amount of time, we began the rides.
Raptor attack seemed to be the first port of call and was,
as Raptor attack generally is, quite a calming little ride with dinosaurs
eating professors featured. Then, I don’t think anything would do but a quick
ride on The Ultimate, where I decided to go for a safe start to the day of
gripping on, and the photo of my ‘flame hair’ amused Mark greatly. A few more
rides of the Ultimate did feature, especially at the end of the day when we re-rode
a couple of times, and throughout the day I gradually worked up the courage,
firstly beginning with no hands but eventually got to the point of no hands and
eyes closed, which is amazingly fun, but I had a few bruises for a week or two.
The Pirate area impressed a fair few and we took a couple of goes on The Black
Pearl which consisted of a few yelps and screams from me on one side and
laughter from everyone else on the other side over the amusement of my ‘hair
time’ (I blame John for starting that). Lunch
was well… It could be worse, the offering at Lightwater Valley I have to admit
is fairly poor, and I feel I made the best choice I could by opting for the
chicken nuggets which admittedly could have been much worse.
After trying the chair swings and having a good old chat
about Eurovision, we headed up to Eagles claw for a run around from the exit,
back into the queue line a couple of times and then, THEN we headed to the
highlight of the day for me, Eagle’s Creek Farm! Oh my god, it was beyond
brilliant, the entire ride I was dancing to the frankly brilliant and amazing
tune that I do not under any circumstances have on my phone. Other than that,
nothing of too much note took place to my recollection.
I did learn a few things from this trip. My brother’s
username CGM are not merely initials, the Harvester in York is not posh enough to
have a dispenser for both ice and water (they opted for ice instead) and
finally, and most importantly I do believe, Animal dubstep does exist.
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