Having a blast on Dynamite

Preface

The last time, I have visited Freizeitpark Plohn, I was not at all impressed by its missing professionalism in some points. I had never issues paying with my Girocard (a German Debit Card) before and since there was not an ATM nearby, I had to drive to the nearby town of Lengenfeld just to get some cash and stand one more time in the queue before finally being able to pay my entrance ticket. This time, I tried to pay online and due to the system in use, it was not at all easy to do so on the phone. It took me several attempts – yet at the end, it worked.

Freizeitpark Plohn

With a good mood, I started my day at the new entrance area to the park, which is now situated right next to the water ride Fluch des Teutates. The Rafting by abc rides gets a good crowd during the first hours of operation, while the area close to the original entrance stays deserted for the most part of the day.

Drachenwirbel

Here we find the small SBF Visa spinning coaster Drachenwirbel. Like most of the installations in Germany, this also comes in the three-loop design, whereby upwards leading righthand curves always change into a downwards leading lefthand curve. Due to the change of direction, the cars quickly get into a rotation. After several laps the ride on the Drachenwirbel comes to an stop and we can exit the ride.

Dynamite

The second and largest addition to the park Freizeitpark Plohn in recent years is the Mack Rides Big Dipper Coaster Dynamite. The ride is situated for most part on the land of the former Silver Mine roller coaster and reuses parts of the queue. The coaster itself is a lot bigger and offers an interesting layout.

After climbing the ride’s lift, the coaster starts with a Dive Drop, whereby the car is slowly rotated around its own axis before it plunges to the ground. At full speed we now pass through a building which gives a great near miss and race over a bunny hop shortly thereafter. A steep curve now leads us upwards. After a more conventional drop, we then enter a righthand curve close to the ground. On a small hill we rapidly change direction before entering Dynamite’s loop. We then pass the ride’s entrance in a Zero-G Roll. Finally, we now circle around the HUSS Break Dance Westernrodeo before hitting the brakes.

Dynamite is a nice addition to the park. The Big Dipper offers a great, albeit short layout which offers a well-defined play of forces. There is only one issue: It does not have a good capacity. With a total of just two cars for up to eight people, the queue can get quite long. Especially, when only one of them is in operation and can only be loaded by a maximum of 4 people due to the Covid-19 regulations. Therefore, I only rode this Mack product once.

Pictures Freizeitpark Plohn

Closing Words

As the Saxonians did not really care about Covid and only a few respected the rules, I left the park early. Overall, I had a good visit to Freizeitpark Plohn. Yet, I was not overly impressed on how El Toro developed in recent years. This coaster is by far one of the roughest wooden coasters, I have been on and to my luck, I had to ride it twice in a row as the ride operation gave an encore. Apart of that, the park’s operations were good, and I am willing to come back once everything is back to normal.

 

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Lots of fun along the Mitta Mitta

One of the longest sections on our journey through Australia was the one between the cities Melbourne and Sydney. Where others would simply take the train or board a plane, we decided to hit the road for two consecutive days and have some fun along the way.

After enjoying a small rafting adventure on the river Iller in the South of Germany in September it was pretty clear that we should do something similar in Australia. We decided to book a day trip on the Mitta Mitta River provided by Rafting Australia, which was comfortably located on our journey towards Sydney.

We therefore booked a night at the Snug as a bug Motel in Omeo, which I can recommend. The offer in Omeo is quite small and during our visit not much was available. After a small snack, we then went on a small hike for the Oriental Claims following the path of the Livingstone Creek. The oriental claims are a former gold mining operation (claim) by the Oriental company from 1876 to 1904, hence the name. It is a nice and interesting walk.

The next day, we headed off for our rafting adventure. As the river hold a lot of water at this time of the year, we were told to have the most exciting route in front of us. Yet first we had to get the boat down to the river, which was already pretty exhausting and an adventure in its own right. After being instructed on a wider part of the river, our adventure could finally start.

For hours we now enjoyed the rapids as well as the quitter passages of the river all embedded in a beautiful landscape. We had a great spirit in the small team and some great talks along the way. At one point we got a small lunch break and enjoyed a particularly nice pumpkin soup. Back to full strength we then continued on the last stage of our river adventure which featured some pretty impressive rapids. We had a blast!

After our rafting experience, our adventure was by far not yet over. In order to get to our next hotel, we were being told a short cut, where we had to go a bit off-road. We did not have the right car for doing so, nor did we have good tires, yet we did it anyways. My friend was quite afraid when I was driving through the serpentines, and we started to slide a bit. The path was quite hilly, which doubled the fun or the fear – depending on which person you asked. After a while we then hit the normal roads again, which were a bit easier to drive on. After riding along Lake Hume for a bit, we then passed the Murray River and entered New South Wales.

I booked a night at the Holbrook Town Center Motor Inn. As we arrived late, I had to call in. While doing so, I wondered why I could not hear anything. After looking at my phone for quite a bit, I then realised that I was still connected to the Bluetooth of the car, and it was acting like a giant speaker. I then called again, and shortly thereafter we could get into our room. As the staff could not charge my credit card for whatever reason, we were waked up quite early and forced to pay. Apart of that, we had a good stay.

On the next day, we took the remaining 500km towards Sydney for Milsons Point. After passing the Harbour Bridge and finding a parking spot, I headed for the nearby Luna Park Sydney, while Aris enjoyed the surrounding area.

 

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Click here for the next report of the Hell Yeah, Schabelteah! Tour

There’s a monster in Maizières-lès-Metz

Walygator Park

A year ago, during Easter, Thomas, Marcel, David and I went to Maizière-lès-Metz to visit the Walygator Parc. The weather was beautiful. The queues were well filled, basically a perfect day for a visit to the park, but unfortunately the reason for our visit – the B&M Inverted Coaster Monster – decided to stop working at that time. Since the park itself really wasn’t bad, our journey was worth it.

A year later, in the worst weather conditions of April, another attempt was made to get a ride on the former Expoland ride Orochi. We had a restful sleep and left the hotel slightly too early; we arrived at the parking lot an hour before the ticket booths were even opened. We had to wait for a while, but during this time the parking lot stayed more or less empty.

Monster

Just before the opening of the park, tests were carried out so that we could expect the park to eventually open. From experience we headed directly towards the roller coaster Monster, even if one or two rides on Anaconda would have made sense, as we first had to wait for 12 passengers in the station.

Gradually our co-passengers started to arrive and as we were the first ones, the first ride of the day took place in the front row on the sister ride of Cedar Points Raptor.

The ride in the first row is rather smooth, the forces in the looping, the quite high located Zero-G Roll and the Cobra Roll are hardly noticeable. Also the highly praised second part of the ride after leaving the former block area is comparatively harmless, as neither the corkscrews nor the helices at the end of the ride manage to build up enough pressure. In the back row the forces are way more pronounced. Where the first part of Monster can clearly convince, one is now pulled in the corkscrews and the helices at the end of the ride.

The monster itself is a good ride, but the layout is unfortunately not Batman La Fuga or as Jan would say it is not Nemesis. It doesn’t matter where the ride has been built, or how it is painted, as the ride itself is fun, it just lacks extremes. The forces themselves make the ride family-friendly, which is why it is a great addition to the park’s portfolio.

Südseewellen

After a round on Family Coaster, the park’s Wacky Worm, Jan went on to discover the park. Passing the former Smurf Village we went to the space area of the park, where the S&S Space Shot Dark Tower is still not completed this year, the Schwarzkopf Orbiter Südseewellen performed a decent, albeit quite monotonous and not too fast ride, and the Vekoma Hurricane Walycoaster waited for passengers.

Walycoaster

The Vekoma ride, which has been in the park since 1989, is one of the best Vekoma rides still running with an Arrow train. Although the latest generation of Vekoma trains can be regarded as truly ingenious, they simply cannot match the timeless design of Arrow. The ride is not bad at all and free of any rattles, but for time reasons we only did one ride.

Terror House

One of the park’s flagship attractions is the Terror House, a maze. Usually a long queue is formed relatively quickly at this ride, if there are other people in the area. However, the really creepy one is not the Maze that shines through some brilliant butcher’s rooms at the beginning of the arrangement of confusing corridors, but the Fun House that has to be completed before. The Terror House itself is quite big, the interior consists mostly of plain rooms with animatronics, there is also a frightener that tries harder than the lost pirate crew from the Lüneburger Heide.

Rafting

The park’s rapid river Rafting is located in the direct proximity of the maze. Built in 1989 by Soquet, this rafting ride is dedicated to the journey of Odysseus and has been superbly staged. Remarkably strange, as well as capacity reducing, is the handling of the boats, which are practically operated in a train system. A further curiosity are, similar to the log flume of the park, the different boats in use.

Tang’Or and Polyp

Passing the always broken HUSS Topple Tower Tang’Or and one of the children’s areas of the park, we reach the lake, where a very strange Schwarzkopf monster is located. Normally the excenter lifts after some time and creates the wave movement of the ride, but as this feature is currently broken you circle more or less fast at ground level. Luckily it’s not difficult to get a good spin on the ride, but the fun is reduced.

Riviére Sauvage

Passing the teacup, the wave swinger and the way too long and way too slow boat ride, you reach the log flume Riviére Sauvage. This ride, built by Soquet, is simplistic and features only a few bends and just one drop. Enough to get you perfectly soaked.

Anaconda

Located at the edge of the park is the wooden roller coaster Anaconda, which was once again voted the worst wooden roller coaster in the world. The coaster doesn’t offer airtime, crosses the tops quite slowly and needs extra weight on the Morgan-built trains, but it’s definitely not the worst wooden coaster in the world. As a wooden coaster, Anaconda delivers a solid ride. The speed, the height, as well as the out & back layout are actually pretty good and worth a ride.

Pictures Walygator Parc

Conclusion Walygator Parc

The Walygator Parc is not a bad amusement park, but also not a very good one. This year the expansion madness of the French showman brothers Claude & Didier Le Douarin continued and so they now present a new children’s land with rides bought by the fairground and simply put up. However, what became of the planned Wild Mouse is hard to say, also it is very likely that the park will not paint its Inverted Coaster for the time being.
 

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