LIGHTWATER VALLEY

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We needn’t have set the alarm this morning. I was awake long before it went off, too excited to sleep any longer. Today was the day that we were off to Lightwater Valley. It’s a theme park that I have very fond memories of being taken to as a child.

As we walked through the grounds I noticed many of the rides had not changed. Some of the rides were a lot smaller than I remember though. It’s funny how you remember things when you’re little. I seem to remember racing down mountain sides at 50 miles an hour on sit on skateboards. As I watched on now it looked more like 2 miles an hour down a small hill. I’m sure the children here today would remember it as a mountain too.

The first ride of the day was The Ultimate. At 2.3km long it’s the second longest roller coaster in the world lasting 7 minutes 34 seconds. We got the seats right at the back so each steep drop felt much faster. It was hard to keep ourselves in the seats as we were whipped over the top pulled by the weight of the carriages in front! After laughing from start to finish we both decided that this was our favourite roller coaster so far. We have read that there are some pretty amazing roller coasters in Australia so we will have to see how they compare.

Next we queued for Raptor Attack. This was called Rat ride when I was a child. People used to queue for hours at a time, I can remember making my dad do the same over and over again -sorry dad! New for this year it has been re-themed. Its still the same roller coaster in the dark, but now instead of being set in a sewer with killer rats it is set in an abandoned mine shaft with dinosaurs. You have to walk through the mine shaft to the ride, giving the illusion that you are underground when in fact its built out of view in an old quarry. Unfortunately it’s the walking to the ride that takes the time and as a consequence we still had to queue for well over an hour.

After a few more rides including and a bit of lunch Andy decided that it was time to face his fears and go on the Eagles Claw and the Whirlwind - both of which he had been dreading. These are both fairground type rides that spin you round and round, side to side and upside down at great speed. We went on one then the other straight after. This was where we went wrong I think because as we stepped rather dizzily off the ride and began walking I realized that my head was not going to stop spinning. Comments from Andy such as “there is too much space for your brain to move about in” didn’t help much so I decided to have a rest on the grass. After 45 minutes I still felt like I’d had a few too many sherries so we had to go home. I’ve never been on any ride that has made me feel ill before, in fact the crazier the ride the better. Maybe I’m just going to have to come to terms with the fact that, as Andy said, its all because I’ve turned 30!

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