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Mush & Mouse South west cred run!

Mushroom

Goon of the Year
Me and @MouseAT just did a nice little cred run down to Devon and Cornwall for a few days, not a bam bam bam cred run, more relaxed, this was more due to opening times of all the parks! Also my road to 500 coasters is very much a thing (If you follow me on socials you would of seen the hash tag #mushroomsroadto500)

Monday involved us meeting up with each other to start with, with Andy living up in Yorkshire, and myself living in Bedford, we had to meet somewhere, and he was driving, so agreed to meet at Chesterfield station. Nice and simple, picked up and off we went. As we were going along, the sat nav on Andy's phone was re-directing us around traffic, which was a bonus. When I realised where it was taking us, I realised we could potentially grab the cred at Sandwell, but when we pulled up, we saw the sign it was only open weekends and school holidays. Oh well, didn't matter, we didn't lose too much time due to this. Then it was onto the south west, stopped for lunch at a services, then it was onto our first destination, Animal Farm Park, sadly Brean was closed that day, so I have to go back. We got to the park and was greeted by this sign....

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Nooooo! First spite of the trip! It was a bit annoying, but oh well. Decided to make our way to our hotel which was about an hour away in Bideford, and crash the night.

Day 2 included 2 parks, The BIG Sheep and Milky Way. So after a decent breakfast, we headed to Big Sheep, and greeted by their weather forecasting stone...
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And their bad sheep puns.... That was the theme all around the park, we weren't planning to stay too long at the park, I know there is sheep herding and sheep racing, and if we were with more people we might of stayed a lot longer, but while waiting for Rampage / The Big One to open, we had a little explore around the park, and took a ride in their train.
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We waited around a bit more, got a small cake from the shop, and then when 11am rolled around, off to ride the coaster!
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It was a really good coaster, obviously fitted in with it's surroundings at Metroland, but works well here. That ment a +1 increase to my count to 479! Woo!

With the coaster out the way, we decided to head out, and onto Milky Way, about a 15 minute drive away.

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Had a chat to the lady on the front desk (really friendly too) and she managed to get the marketing manager, Paul, out of the office to speak to us. Nice bloke, and explained how the park does well with bad weather conditions as it was more indoors than out, and he knew about my YouTube as well which was good. But we went on, and first coaster was in front of us, Clone Zone, a indoor powered coaster.
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Was quite quirky, and different. Bit of fun! +1 for both of us, making it #480 for me and #402 for Andy. We looked at the time and noted the Birds of prey show was happening, so we watched that. Had a little wander about the place, rode Cosmic Caterpillar

While we waited for Cosmic Typhoon to open we went on their new for 2018 ride, Gravity Rider, where you sit in a dingy and slide down a slope.

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Now for a little meander around looking around at the other bits and pieces, a ride on the Dodgems, which were pretty good, and now onto a coaster which I filmed a forward and reverse video on, Cosmic Typhoon.
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The coaster is going through a re-paint at the moment, so it is multi coloured, but it wasn't a bad coaster none-the-less. With coaster 482 done, we had a little wander again before we left for Penzance! Why Penzance? What stupid reason would we travel to that town, well, @10WaTT lives there. That's why. But first, there was a town called Mousehole, and we had to do this...
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The Mouse in front of The Mousehole! Worth it going there for just that! Got to our hotel, checked in, contacted 10WaTT to say we were there. He came and picked us up, and went out with him and his wife to Helston to a great Burger place called Boo Koos. Worth checking out if you are in the area! Then headed back into Penzance, said our bye's to 10WaTT and his Mrs. We decided to take a stroll around Penzance along the front. Very un-spoilt compared to other sea side towns we had been too, and was a nice little sleepy town.

Day 3 we had to head back to Helston, for Flambards!
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The rides didn't open for about 1/2 hour after park opening, so we decided to stroll through the Victorian village, was really interesting, and took as well over 45 minutes to look around. But our main reason for being here was for Hornet, UK's most southerly coaster...
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It was a bit shaky, but was alright, I still prefer it's sister ride to this, Vol D'Icare at Asterix. We decided to do their Drop Tower, Sky Raker, it is similar to the one they put in Paultons, but with a lot less themeing!
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It was fab! Me and Andy didn't fancy getting wet on the Log Flume, or do a spin and spew ride, but Pendulus from Pleasure Island was looking good in it's new scheme and named Sky Force!
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We had a quick nosey around the rest of the park, and one more quick ride on Hornet, then we were off to our next destination, Dawlish Warren. After a few hours, we arrived at Funder Park
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It is home to a Wacky Worm, so it was a simple of getting in and out with grabbing the cred.
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With that out the way, the count is now up to 484! Then it was over to Exeter for our hotel for the night. Once we were there, had a little explore around the city centre, grabbed some food, chilled out and off to bed.

Day 4 involved Crealy.
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We got there nice and early, and had a little explore around the barn, and messaged someone we were there, he had only messaged me a couple of days prior that he now works at Crealy, so we met up with him, some of you may know him, Steve Walsh (He used to be at Chessie). Had a nice chat about things, and how the park is doing etc. and recommended to do Twister first, as funnily enough it is temperamental with the wind.
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The coaster wasn't too bad, could of been worse! But was okay! Then it was over to Shark Bay.
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The op was very enthusiastic about doing things, fair play to him. I only JUST fitted in this, Damn tight restraints, but at least I got it!

Now it was over to Maximus, the Vekoma Rollerskater
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Was pretty decent for a rollerskater, nice to see a little bit of attention with the theme etc. now that made my count to 487 and Andy's to 409! We decided to have a wander around the park, and they have loads of room for expansion. But if they choose to or not is a different matter. We finished up our couple of hours at the park riding Vortex.
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It was a nice little waterslide with some lighting effects in the tunnel. With that we decided to head out to our next destination.

We drove a couple of hours to Bournemouth airport for a park called Adventure Wonderland as they had a plus 1 there. got to the kiosk (knowing it was a children's park), gave the guy there a spiel saying we just wanted to ride the coaster and come out again. He said they can't let just adult groups into the park which was a shame, and it says on their website too (in the general information but buried quite deeply in that which I looked up afterwards). So we were denied the cred there. Then it was a trip all the way back to mine, to get dropped off, and Andy was staying the night nearby before going to Blackpool to ride Icon more.

Hope you enjoyed this read! It was a nice chilled trip for us, no rushing about and a much needed holiday.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
I've seen a few of your posts on SM, and was wondering what was going on with the sudden rush of small coasters! Good to read a bit more about it. I really must put my mind to sorting out Devon/Cornwall at some point, it's a bit mad I've never done any further down than Brean!
 

Mushroom

Goon of the Year
I've seen a few of your posts on SM, and was wondering what was going on with the sudden rush of small coasters! Good to read a bit more about it. I really must put my mind to sorting out Devon/Cornwall at some point, it's a bit mad I've never done any further down than Brean!
It was about time I did these parks myself, that's why I went and did it =] And Andy hadn't done them before too. The amount of people who rush in and rush out of these places is a bit crazy at times. Take your time and enjoy it =]

Also uploaded my first pov from the trip
 

MouseAT

Hyper Poster
Haha, glad you enjoyed it [by not rushing about]. Kind of the opposite of our trip down the south west last year.
Taking it easy was about the only feasible way for us to do the parks. At the end of the 5 days I've been away, I reckon I've covered just under 1200 miles behind the wheel. Admittedly, that includes the detours to spiteful Bournemouth, and to Blackpool, but even so, that's a substantial distance. I think I'd have struggled with a faster pace, and besides we'd probably have been a lot more stressed if we'd added any more cred anxiety to the mix.

As it turns out, it's worth taking it slow. The parks may not have a lot in the way of rides, but they all seem to have their own unique charm, so it's worth taking an extra hour or two to check out what they have to offer.
 
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