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May 3, 2004

THORPE PARK

A few months ago, I made an arrangement with Debs to go out for the bank holiday monday in May. The only thing was, she was not told where - it was a surprise outing.

"Where are we going?" Debs continually asked several times a day from the moment the plan was first hatched. Not giving anything away, it was only when our secret location was broadcast on local road signage on the day in question that she twigged. Thorpe Park.

Moments after arrival, under the ominous grey of the Surrey sky, a 'chance' encounter with Simon S at the entry gate, as well as Nick M trying (very badly)to hide from her in the cash machine queue, led Debs to conclude that this was no coincidence.

Buoyed by the excitement of reliving our younger years, we bounced through the gates and headed for Detonator - a high speed vertical drop designed to do none other than brown your pants.

It was here that I was subjected to the inexperiences of pre-pubescent teenagerhood - clearly the spotty nerd securing the harnesses had never had adult tackle resting comfortably on the seat, only to have the overhead shoulder harness forcibly pulled down, making nauseating contact with his soft, innocent genitalia. Thank you, then, to the little bastard that did it to me.

If I didn't feel sick then, I certainly felt a lot more unwell when I was at the top of the ride, gazing out over the tree tops, dangling high in the sky and looking out over the surrounding towns. Suddenly I remembered that I had a fear of heights, before making a timely remark about being able to spot the M25 from where I was and plummeting at a rate of knots towards the concrete below. "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT" was about all I could manage as we plunged Earthwards, before the ride abruptly slowed and I was able to unhook the harness and waddle off the platform clutching my knackers.

The weather wasn't brilliant and we were far from suitably dressed, the cold and wet was slowly seeping through. Simon showed off his new trainers to us all, with their lovely hugely-bowed laces. "They're Vans" he said as we mocked him for wearing what looked like ladies footwear. "Probably off the reject line from Evans you mean" Nick M remarked in a moment of sheer genius.

We rocked our way through Nemesis Inferno, hid in the darkness of the corridors in No Way Out and generally acted in a very juvenile way.

All the excitement affected Simon's belly and we had to make a pit stop at the Donuts stall for him to pick up a bag of ten. The ensuing photograph is one of my all-time favourites.....

It got wetter and wetter, so by the time the water was dripping off our sodden clothes, we decided that we might as well get on the Tidal Wave ride because we couldn't get much wetter. How very wrong we were. Half way up the ride, I had a brainwave involving our map of the park and the ride camera. As we hurtled down the slope at breakneck speed, I put on my very best frown and studied the map as the camera clicked a very amusing photograph. A few seconds later we hit the pool at the bottom and for a moment or two, we thought 'I'm not that wet, what's all the fuss about?' just as it became clear why the ride was called Tidal Wave and we were absolutely drenched in water.

After lunch, we were still soggy and the only way I could warm up was to buy a t-shirt from the shop, borrow a jumper from Simon S, and invest in a waterproof jacket. Just as the sun came out. Fearful of further showers, we hid in the amusement arcades for an hour or so, throwing coins into machines for the sheer fun of it, yet on one particular machine, Nick and Sarah just kept on winning. So much so, in fact, that they completely cleaned out the machine and had to call the attendant when it broke due to lack of funds.

I tried to win a variety of toys on the fun-fair style stalls but failed miserably on every single one, partly due to the dodgy design of the games, but mostly to do with the fact that I couldn't shake off the shivers.

We messed around on the tea-cups, had a trip on the Flying Fish and a trio of rides on the Rumba Rapids, but the most amusing event of the day, perhaps even of the year to date, has to be Simon and Vortex.

We queued for fifteen minutes, had our photo taken just before we boarded the ride and rushed to our own arm of the eight arm ride where we pulled down the shoulder harnesses over our heads. Each arm of the ride faced another and made an octagonal shape around one central pillar. The attendant walked over to where we were, said that she had to wait for the green light behind our seats to illuminate and she just stood there. Everyone was looking, what was the delay? What was taking so long? Why wasn't that wretched light going green? "I'm sorry, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to get off the ride" she eventually said to Simon, "it's your shoulders". Simon was TOO BIG for the ride! By now I was in hysterics and both Debs and Michelle could not hide their amusement as Simon had to walk through the middle of the ride, with everyone on the eight arms staring at him, not to mention onlookers from the queue. Giving an embarrassed wave, he wandered off the ride and watched from the side as we were swung to and fro for several stomach-turning seconds.

When we went on Logger's Leap (reputed to be the largest log flume in Western Europe), we were in a silly mood and decided to split girls from boys. Jumping in our log like a bobsled team, we had Simon at the back, me in the middle and Nick heading the team. Unfortunately for Simon he did not consider the upward projection of the log to get to it's high point. As we went up the first slope, I shouted 'TENSE' to Nick as we pointed towards the sky and tensed our bodies, and then 'RELAX' as we slumped in our seats, the combined force of gravity and our body-weight pressing hard against a vulnerable Simon, particularly when you consider that his legs were apart.

At the bottom of the first slope, I received an unintentional head-butt from Simon as subconscious pay-back for the tense-relax incident. Giggling like a schoolgirl, more tense-relaxes ensued and by the time we got off the ride, Simon could barely walk from the pain whilst Nick and I could hardly breathe from laughing.

There was just enough time for a go on Depth Charge before one more defiant trip on Tidal Wave where we covered every part of our bodies in defence.

All in all a superb day and great fun had by all.

PHOTOS

Posted by jonola14 at May 3, 2004 10:09 PM

Posted by: Wibbler at May 9, 2004 10:08 PM