Ahhh the theme parks...

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Brisbane - Sunshine Coast

Day 257
Tuesday, 06 November 2007

Finally getting out of Brisbane - it seems that each main road has a name change (for no apparent reason mind you) at least three times along its length. We arrived in Surfers after braving the Pacific Hwy. Along the way our central locking decided to get an attack of the gremlins and went ballistic / haywire. Ahhh the smell of money leaving our pocket…..

Arrived in Surfers with rain looking ominous for the next few days - just what you need after a year of travelling and having the kids looking forward to this ‘Theme Park’ trip for the whole journey. With three hundred days of sunshine per year apparently it looks like we managed to pick a period where they have 7 days of rainy weather. Ahh well….as everyone always says they need the rain.

Sunshine Coast

Day 258 - 262
Wednesday, 07 November 2007 - Sunday, 11 November 2007

Well rain it did - don’t know how much but it was a fair percentage of the night as everything around us was puddled with water in the morning - which still looked as if it had some rain to come. After the obligatory schoolwork in the trailer we headed off for a drive around the infamous area…only to be caught in our first traffic jam for a long while! Not an experience we need to have!!!

Ended up driving along ‘the spit’ past Seaworld and with it still raining decided that further driving was of no great benefit and so decided on the flicks. We ended up seeing “The Game Plan” - the only movie suitable in a limited selection at the theatre we attended. As it happened it was a pretty reasonable family movie and the kids enjoyed it.

Went back to the car with it making some weird electronic sounding noises. After getting back to the caravan park I pulled the front kick panel off and found the source of our clicking noise. As it happened it was the central locking control unit but although the unit was trying desperately to lock and unlock the doors, hence the clicking, it is probably the actuators which have failed. A trip to the auto sparky is on the cards. Although the warranty is for 12 months and we are three days inside that period its not much good when the warranty is based on the original supplier redoing any work…..typical!

The following day, after another all-nighter of rain, the prospect didn’t look like a goer on the theme park side of things so we decided on trying to knock over some schoolwork with the kids to catch up and make some ground. As it happened the remainder of the day wasn’t too bad and a day trip to Movieworld might not have been a bad thing. We hope that the rain has done its thing and that tomorrow will be even better for our two days of theme park action. Lets hope so.

Car problems on the central locking front took the majority of Friday until lunchtime (along with the best part of $500 bucks) and, although it was a reasonable day it was too late to head off to the parks so…..more schooling! At least we can make some headway as we are still keen to have them both finish their sets and get it back to their teacher to have it marked and assessed so that they have completed the full years work.

Sunday dawned - our little girls birthday! A big 8 year old now. OK hit the schooling….just kidding. After letting her sleep in for a bit i.e. just after 6:00 am, we did the present giving. The presents consisted of a number of items of a required nature more so than any other big gifts - similar to Brayden’s birthday gifts. Amanda beautifully wrapped them in the previous days newspaper! Well it does the job! The girl was happy with several books, makeup, drawing items of sparkling pencils and fluoro pens and a few other bits and bobs. With her breakfast request of poached eggs on toast being a little difficult immediately, we didn’t have any eggs, her appetite had to wait until the shops were open! Not everything runs to plan…

With restaurant quality poached eggs cooked by my good self (authors licence here obviously) and, with our bellys reasonably full, we were ready to hit Rhiannon’s choice of theme park - MovieWorld.

After being photographed at the ticketing gate, so that we couldn’t transfer our tickets I guess, we entered into the Warner Brothers domain of MovieWorld. The first thing that catches your attention was both the BatWingSpaceshot and the Superman Rollercoaster - none of which impressed our birthday girl…..or at least neither took her fancy to try out. Brayden and I had other ideas though! We had to wait ~20 mins or so in the queue to get onto the Superman rollercoaster and luckily we ended up being the first two for the group. Front row positions - bonus. Well ….what an amazing ride! After going through what was much like a suburban underground railway in crisis (part of the theme) you end up looking up a slight incline out to the open air - but through a steamy opening. 2 seconds later you are propelled at 100km/hr apparently (and easily feels like it) and onto the rollercoaster proper where you twist, turn, spiral around and upside down, lift off your seat and seemingly defy the laws of physics by sticking to those rails but fully expecting the thing to take off into oblivion…..especially as Superman himself is on the back of it pushing us along!!! Fan - bloody - tastic!!!

Unfortunately, with Rhiannon not wanting to go on this ride, she and Amanda had to wait outside for the half hour - not really a good thing for her birthday treat! We then went to the Police Academy stunt show. Here again I was surprised as I expected a bit of a mundane show with a few theatrics. I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually quite funny and the crowd was well entertained. One of the “volunteers” was a ‘plant’ but before it was obvious it was quite hilarious. It was a good show with some great driving/drifting in a small space and some type example “special effects” along with the stuntmen doing the things that stuntmen do in a comedy skit. Well worth it.

At this point Rhiannon hadn’t been on a ride yet so the Road Runner rollercoaster was for her - still a rollercoaster but a little more sedate and no loops. She seemed to enjoy that and, admittedly, still good fun - just not as extreme as the Superman Rollercoaster. MovieWorld seem to have done a pretty good job here with numerous rides catering for all ages and tastes from real youngsters to full on adrenaline junkies.

Our next stop was the Shrek 4-D theatre - the full experience with moving seats and other effects. This theatre plays a Shrek movie in 3D (have to wear the specially designed glasses) and together with other interactive ‘things’ gives a very amusing and entertaining show. The other ‘things’ consisted of seats which moved according to action on the screen and the odd water sprays (donkey sneezes towards you and a little bit of water sprays at the same time), spiders are dangled on screen but little bits of material under the seat brush past your legs to feel as if they are overrunning you. Another good little show - “with your senses on ogre-time”.

After visiting the Wild West section and being slugged hard on the food price (well what do you expect I guess) we went to the Wild West Adventure Ride - a boat/rollercoaster type ride. This was set through an old western mining ghost town. Quite a good little themed ride with a few twists and turns and unexpected things to keep all amused and thrilled. The final leap over the waterfall as “the mine is about to blow up” was very exhilarating, although it is only 20m vertical at 70km/hr. I think it is perhaps because you see the lip of the fall coming for sometime which builds the suspense and expectation. As they capture you on camera going over the falls we had a pretty good family shot and lashed out and bought the $15.00 photo after the ride. At the end of the falls though is the landing in the water that gets you partially wet. Amanda and Rhiannon sat in the second seat back which is supposed to be the wettest. Great fun.

Brayden and I just had to go on the Lethal Weapon ride - a rollercoaster where you hang from the rails as opposed to sit in a car. According to the advertising blurb ….765 metres of cold hard steel. Dives, bends, rollovers, sidewinders, double spins, loops and plunges. Whilst it was good it wasn’t anywhere near as exhilarating as I expected. Having said that though, Brayden was oohing and ahhing continuously so he must have liked it.

We all went on several other rides (including the Batwing Spaceshot - where you launch upwards 60m through 4.5 G’s and then go negative G on descent), watched the Marilyn show, (a slight bias with older men here!), visited a few other shops. Rhiannon revisited the Road runner rollercoaster three times in all so she obviously like that.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see all the shows. It seems that really you need two days to be able to do the rides you wish to do (assuming say a ½ hour queue) and be able to get to all the shows as well. Perhaps that is their ploy though to get you to spend your money at their establishment next time….

A great day was had by all.

Sunday loomed cold,wet,windy and rainy. Just what you need for a day at a Wet’N’Wild!!! Still we had waited around already for too long so we were going come hell or high water. Arrived just after it opened and there was still a crowd - although not chokkas. Our first stop had to be the Extreme H2O Zone. The first ride we went for (Brayden and I that is) was the new Tornado. This entails a drop through a large tube into a great big funnel on a clover leaf tube. Good fun. Next was the Black Hole - an enclosed tube ride which is almost completely pitch black…apart from some corners where small holes of light (like stars disappearing down into a black hole) were apparent. There are some sections on this ride where you have absolutely no idea which way you are about to turn - excellent fun.
A quick slide down the sidewinder - a raft based ride, was comparatively sedate but still good fun. The same tower had another ride called the Mach 5. For me this was the most fun as it was a speed freaks dream. After a couple of small whoop de dos you essentially free fall a good way down the slope at god knows what speed until you seem to aquaplane into the water at the bottom until you slow to a stop. Excellent fun and my favourite ride of the whole park.

With Amanda and Rhiannon missing out so far we had to take the family rides so the Mammoth Falls ride was next on the list. This comprised a large convoluted water slide but ridden in a large round raft/tube so that groups and families could ride with people of less adventurous natures. Unfortunately Amanda had pulled a muscle in her back and was disinclined to go on some of the more exciting rides - although maybe this was just her excuse!

The kids than had a quick dip in the wave pool - 10 mins of waves and 10 mins without. This seemed to be pretty popular with people of all ages but, I’d have to admit, I couldn’t see the attraction when compared to the beach. Obviously a lot of people beg to differ!!

A visit to some of the older ‘type example’ water slides was next on the agenda. A large slide with 8 lanes allowing for a race down the slopes. Body mass was paramount here. Another raft related ride called the speedcoaster got up a fair whack of speed as you zoomed down the straight slope until being pulled up at the end. Whilst waiting to go on this ride though you are stuck at the top of a tower, wet and freezing as the wind rips right through you.

Our final ride for the day was on an oversized surfboard that was thrown through an arc with spinning carousels full of people. Brilliant feeling. We ended up just squeezing on for another ride at the end of the day before it closed up shop.

Sunshine Coast - Byron Bay

Day 263
Monday, 12 November 2007

So onto the last of Queensland - it’s a pity, really, that we farewell Queensland by passing through the urbanised area of the Twin Towns and apartments and development along the coast. Its not really representative of what we have seen in Queensland - but that’s the way of it.

We stopped off along the coast just north of Coolangatta and walked along the beach with the towering apartments of Surfers off into the northern distance. Couldn’t quite see ourselves living in that sort of environment and only hope that Perth will always limit any development along the coastal strip - preferably even demolish Bondy’s monstrosity at Scarborough perhaps….

With the weather now turning wonderfully sunny (just our luck our week to go to the theme parks was wild and woolly) it could have a t least been raining as we left! Still you cant be everywhere with perfect conditions.

So with complete development and urbanisation surrounding us we head south and, almost by stealth it seems, arrive into NSW with no fanfare, no signs, no recognition of changing of state boundaries other than a change in the main number plates from QLD to NSW. Goodbye Queesnland - thanks for the ride!

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