Ratanga Junction

If Gold Reef City is the big park in Joburg then Ratanga Junction is the same for Cape Town, and a must do if you're here but with only two major parks in the country and not much nearby you need to be quite a devoted coaster fan to travel here; lose one of those parks and the likelihood of people making the effort to visit reduces significantly.

Before

After

In mid-2014 news broke that part of Ratanga Junction, a park that had been here for nearly 20 years, had closed about a third of its park and moved the demolition company in. The mine train was one of the victims. So with the days looking to be numbered bringing this forward was a must for Tal and Thomas. For me I'd been here before and there was nothing new to get but I was interested in seeing how the park was following its resizing.

You know you're getting close when you see one of a few aircraft stuck on a hill.

That's the Bushwhacker coaster peeking over the hill and it's a nice comfort to see it running.

The place wasn't busy at all. Perhaps word has spread that its closing. The unofficial word is it still has a few years left with it likely to be closing in 2017.

We had intended for a quiet lunch in the central stage area where were serenaded by a young girl singing Miley Cyrus on karaoke. It was as terrible as you could imagine.

It was something like this. For the full effect turn your speaker to 11. Unfortunately we're now scarred by this track and would awkwardly cringe every time we head the original, which given its popularity happened a lot!

Plenty of shade in this park!

The park home to an amazing array of plants including this baby triffid.

The first coaster was the rollerskater, which here is called Bushwhacker, which was the term given to North American revolutionaries but here is used in the context of a long bladed farming implement. Of course to those of us who grew up watching the WWF we'll know the Bushwhacker as something a bit different.

Yeah brother!!!

This park had stupid signs but unlike Gold Reef they were enforcing them, and they wouldn't let me ride this with my bag, which I can undertand, but I also had to take my glasses off even with a strap, which made no sense. I'm only fearing with the way the park is going they're doing their most to avoid any litigation. Perhaps they've not got the money for a court case.

The ride was fine but being a little narked off with the ride operator I had no intention of going back on for another go so headed on over to the next coaster.

Quite a nice looking flume ride but I'm done getting wet, more so when I'm having to catch a flight in the same clothes on the same day.

I'm still liking this alternative name to "dodgems". Whereas in the UK we're encouraged to avoid, here in South Africa we're encouraged to smash the vehicles as much as we can.

When I first saw this name I decided it was the best name for a ride ever, that has now changed as in Sicily they have an aquatic dodgems ride called "Aquabum" which is so much better.

The Cape Cobras Thrill Ride is a rather good SLC. Now I know a lot of enthusiasts reading this will be responding "there's no such thing", but I like these rides and I had no issue with this one. Also quite bizarrely they didn't mind the strap on my glasses and I could ride being able to see!

It still has the snake house entrance but they've removed some of the references to the local cricket team from which the ride takes its name.

The park lacks strollers and electric chairs for the lazy but they do have these cool little bikes, which were a tad small for me :)

The north-west corner of the park is the area that was lost and it was clear there was quite a lot of construction going on. The mine train that used to be here, and which was pretty good now has a new home in Chile.

I'm hoping this is an ironic statement that any progress that was happening was at the expense of the park. Perhaps highlighting that it wasn't the park's decision to do this.

This is a much nicer sign, signifying your departure from the park. It's just a shame we're seeing reality in the park as it slowly eats its into the park. 

and that was Ratanga Junction, which if you're wanting to visit you're going to do pretty soon. It can be found in Century City around 20 minutes from Cape Town harbour, which was where were headed next.

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