Gold Reef City

After an easy daytime flight courtesy of British Airways Tal and I landed in Jo'Burg and hung around waiting for Thomas to arrive from Germany. Immigration was fine with plenty of desks open and I think it took around 20 minutes to get through. With the risk of Ebola in the area we had to clear a thermal camera check, which for some reason we had to remove our glasses for.

Perhaps they're looking for scorpions, they show up quite easily. The first night was spent catching up and then getting some rest for the next day.

The next morning had our hotel organise a driver to take us to Gold Reef City, the main theme park in the city. 

We were welcomed by some very shy tall men. 

and by a man with a bad knee. The park is on top of a gold mine hence the name and its rumoured that the park was built with the gold found under it. It's quite a good plan as with the gold mining having ended people have a reason to visit the area. The downside is that there's no gold left hence no expansion in the park.

These rumours were started by me, just now.

Being a mining themed park, expect a lot of genuine mining machinery as theming.

The first coaster was in my opinion the best one in the country, Anaconda a unique installation of a Giovanola inverted rollercoaster. They're a Swiss maker who went bust a while back.

With a clear nod to fellow Swiss company B&M, the coaster is a great ride and was open for most of the day unlike my last visit where it only ran twice (we'd fortunately made the second one)

After a slightly delayed opening the second coaster opened up. This powered mine train only did a single lap but the track was quite long and ridiculously over banked. I'm surprised kids don't fall out, perhaps they do and they're eaten by the wildlife that live beneath the ride.

To a South African it's a food concession that sells sausages.

To a Brit, it's an entendre, and nothing more.

Gold Loop was up next. One of only 2 weight drop shuttle coasters left in the world. (Well done if you knew the other one was in Brazil). These are launched by dropping a huge weight down a deep shaft which pulls the car; accelerated by gravity if you will. It's a great punchy ride.

These rides perform better in the southern hemisphere because the weights can fall off the planet easier.

Rides are meant to be written. Rules are meant to be broken.

So well done ride operators for allowing us to re-ride immediately until there was a queue waiting.

I didn't have any non-rider friends today. 

Fortunately we could leave our valuable man bags on the platform.

As well as coasters the park has a small number of buildings that house galleries and back stories to the mining heritage. This'll keep the parents happy whilst the kids, and big kids, play on the rides.

Up next was the only ride close to challenging Anaconda as best ride in the country. Tower of Terror is a drop machine retro-fitted to a genuine mining tower. If you're familiar with the rides at Alton Towers, this is their Oblivion, only built by themselves. 

This ride is a record breaker as it puts the riders through more positive Gs than any other on the planet. The fastest rollercoaster in Dubai manages to put you through 4.8 during its sustained launch and the legendary Moonsault Scramble in Japan was taken down for putting it's riders through 6.2 but this bad boy goes a little bit higher reaching 6.3 at the bottom of its drop. 

When I rode this last time I recall the drop being ok but the bottom of the drop being a bit of a headbanger, and that hasn't changed today. It's still for me a ride-once ride but the others were clearly more impressed and rode it a few more times. 

The exploratory is an indoor science playground where everyone can interact with a number of science-focused exhibits. Anything that promotes thinking in a park is a good thing. Nice job Gold Reef!

I also found a little model theme park in there.

The kids coaster Shongololo (millipede) was up next. This was a ride myself and Martin hijacked on our last visit. The park insists on having a child with each party who wish to ride. Adults only aren't allowed. Not wanting to jump next to random kids this time I chose to give it a miss (a good reason to visit a park twice is that you don't have to ride every rollercoaster). Instead I let Thomas and Tal negotiate the borrowing of a child from the locals, which they managed in a more polite way than I did. 

Random little rides, some of which were new to the park since my last visit.

The powered car ride here has hills and swooping drops. Usually they're flat. 

Does this make it a powered coaster...(we didn't ride it)

Next coaster was the Jozi Express, and for year's I always wondered who Jozi was. Only on this trip did I stupidly realise that Jozi is the locals' nickname for Johannesburg. D'Oh!

It's a large ride but not a particularly exciting one. In the classification scale of coaster enjoyment this is well within the "meh!" range.

More education for the little kids. The rear of the park has a farm.

This ride was pulling in quite a few people, and was probably the most screamiest ride. I don't think South African's like being turned upside down.

Speaking of down, this was the only ride not operational today. From a coaster riding perspective this is good news but actually only having a single ride inoperable does mean they're doing their ride maintenance properly. 

The breakdance ride was tame compared to many others that I've been on. It was also lacking all the fair soundsystem and operator patter you usually get. 

For lunch we avoided Sausage Galore and had a nice meal in one of their restaurants. Food here is good!

The maintenance truck had to wait for the chickens swag a-plenty to pass.

To escape the midday sun we found a little music museum with a 4D cinema next door. The film, which I hadn't seen before told the story of a weedy boxer taking on a much bigger guy. Usually 3D films are all about big vistas so it was different to see something a little different. 

"I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle"

Some shots from the big wheel of the 3 main coasters. It was quite good timing to get a car on the drop ride.

Tal and Thomas wanted more. Clearly their desire for a concussion on day 1 of the trip was bigger than mine.

A large piece of theming.

The signage is amusing in this park.

We liked this park so much Tal decided to have his photo taken with broken knee man on the way out. He almost knocked him over getting out I might add.

So that was park one of the trip and its still holding up as a really good park, and the main theme park draw in the country. Theming is good, there's shade, all the rides were running, food is good and the weather held up with just a tiny spell late in the day. In short I don't think we had any complaints at all and it was good that we had done everything we wanted to do quicker than planned, which allowed us more time at the next place. 

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