After driving through deepest darkest Wales whilst only listening to the Welsh artists on Ian's iPod (that'll be Stereophonics, Manics and Tom Jones, then! haha) and having an argument with SatNav, we eventually arrived at the park. It had one of those gravel car parks marked out with bits of blue rope that all parks of a certain size seem to have! (See: Dennlys and Milky Way, amongst others)
We walked through to the entrance and were greeted by the amazing sign of amazingness, only made better by having IanFromCoasterForce stood next to it!
I did my NicFromCoasterForce bit and met Mark from the park (ha! that rhymes!) He kindly let us into the cafe out of the rain while we waited for the CarOfBurden to arrive. Best part of an hour later, we finally made it out into the park.
First stop was the Funicular CRED!
(Actually, I hate to say it, but Ollie has a point about it not going up - means its no more of a cred than 'CRED De Atlantide', surely?!) The coaster is actually fab. So much more forceful than I expected of a kiddie/family coaster. It's actually really quite fast, plus the way it goes through the trees is excellent. Much better than expected! After riding it.... we did it again obviously! I love the funicular element, but 2 rides in a row means walking up a steep hill 4 times in quick succession, which wasn't much fun!
Next up were the mat slide thingies. Imagine an astroglide, but made out of a kind of astroturf/dry ski slope type material, and instead of a mat, you sit in a plastic sledge to slide down. It was fun because about halfway down it started to feel really out of control. I was panicing about having friction burn holes in the arse of my jeans though! haha! Oh plus, as with pretty much everything at this park, riding meant trekking up another MASSIVE hill.
Oh look, there's a sign that says tree house... let's climb up and have a look... oh, wait! I've just walked up a hill, round in a circle and back down again. Great.
Oh look, there's another massive steep hill! Let's walk up it and see where it goes! Oooooh, den demolishing!
(I stood WELL out of the way! sue always manages to injure me when she's empty handed, and she was careering around with a massive stick like a baddie in Star Wars)
We walked past the "Zip Wire of DEATH!" (making a selection of CF-typical incredibly tasteless jokes <3) then... oh look... down a big hill in a big circle back to where we started! argh!
We then found the big climbing frame thing with the slides. I couldn't be bothered, so instead had a quick go on the "disabled slide" then sat and watched. By this point it was nearly 1pm and we were right by the theatre where a magic show was about to start. After doing my best to persuade Ian, we eventually decided to go and watch it, and I'm so glad we did! haha! We took our seats in the "fully air conditioned theatre"
Whilst waiting for the show to start, we noticed that we were all sat with our legs crossed in the same way. This is what happened next...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-b4qtkCZiU[/youtube]
As you've seen by now, Ed got pulled up to help, and it was hilarious. (PS. way to go stealing the centrepiece of my PTR, bitch!
Yes, that's my video btw!)
The magician, Howard Hughes, was really entertaining. Really took me back to sitting cross-legged on the floor of a friend's conservatory at a birthday party when I was about 6 years old! hehe!
I think we went for lunch after that at the cafe by the entrance. The food was pretty good really, although the wasp infestation made eating it a bit hazardous. mind you, there was this one Dad of a family in there who we dubbed "The Wasp Ninja" because he must've killed about 15 with a rolled up park map whilst we were sat there!
After lunch, we went and did the barefoot trail. I say 'we' but in reality, there's no way you'd get me on that! (The sign discouraged people with arthritis from doing it - that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!) Seriously though, who on EARTH thought that was a good idea?! In case you can't work it out from the name, the barefoot trail is a pathway through the forest that you must walk along with bare feet. It consists of a number of different surfaces such as sand, painful looking cobbles, straw covered manure and razor sharp slate chippings. Seriously WHY would you do that?! WHY??!!!! Even Will didn't approve FFS! Here's some photos of people with sore feet...
From there we did the crocodile maze. It's alright, but would be better if it was a bit more over-grown
Then, guess what, we walked up a massive hill, round in a big circle and ended up back where we started! We then went and did the boats. These were a nice and unusual idea, although the channel could've done with being a little wider in places.
After that we did archery. Believe it or not, the most clumsy, most burdenous CFer of the lot won - Burdenous_Sue! Her prize? Ian's dead cigarette lighter! haha Whilst waiting for everyone to finish, BridgeForce went planking on a bridge
We then found stilts...
So that pretty much brought our visit to an end. It's a lovely park with a fantastic atmosphere. A real family vibe and a lot of fun. If I had to compare it to anywhere, I'd say it was pretty similar to Robin Hill on the IoW, but much better. Thanks to Mark, Howard and all the team at Greenwood for making our day just that bit more memorable <3
StoneCold mentioned that 'that place with the stupidly long name' was only 10 mins up the road, so most of us popped in there on the way home...
Bonkers.
