Richard Bannister

Camelot Theme Park has been on my want list for more than two years, primarily due to it being the only one in the United Kingdom with more than three credits for me. My long overdue visit was triggered by the addition of what was one of the best coasters in Japan, BMR-X, and thus the reader is invited to imagine my consternation at the discovery that the ride now known as Knightmare was not scheduled to open until five days after my visit. From its appearance today it seemed almost inevitable that that date would not be met; time will tell.

As such, the day turned into a credit whoring expedition. Caterpillar Capers (#977) was my second Big Apple in two days, and the diesel-powered Dragon Flyer being hardly more exciting, albeit significantly longer, the track circling a large area of the park. It was almost embarrassing to ride Junior Dragon Coaster, all the more so because I was the only person over that side of the park, George having obtained the credit on a previous occasion. Fortunately, the morning was rescued somewhat by the superlative Whirlwind (#978), a ride that certainly lived up to its name. Though it is no longer run with the ruthless efficiency it would have seen in its German fair days, the ride quality hasn't suffered much. In reality the spinning was if anything more intense than I remember from the clone that's still there, making for a truly disorienting experience.

We ran into James and Simon in the park, season pass holders who had come in solely to admire the current state of Knightmare. I may be obsessed with theme parks, but I have never made a trip to a park just to see the current state of a ride that I knew to be still under construction! Be that as it may, it was while talking to them that the most amusing moment of the day occurred; we were in earshot of the queue for The Rack, a top-spin style attraction that we had absolutely no interest in riding. The audio recording blasted over the queue areas advised potential riders that they were about to experience extreme torture. Quite.

The second park of the day was arranged thanks to Martin, as the Gulliver's family parks have a rule that all adults must be accompanied by a child. It is not hard to understand the thinking behind this rule, given the world we live in, though it is a bit frustrating for coaster enthusiasts especially those interested in riding all the wooden coasters in England. Martin was accompanied by Julie and Lauryn, saving us the necessity of explaining that Martin was one of the two children we brought with us to the park.

Though we'd been forewarned that a neck brace might be useful for Antelope (#979), it proved largely unnecessary thanks to some very recent retracking. The ride looks and feels like Zach's Zoomer (or indeed any other junior wooden coaster), and while it would never win any top ten rankings it was still a lot of fun. The Wild Mine Ride (#980) was pretty standard stuff, complete with the extremely harsh brake at the end catching out the unwary rider. We managed to distract Martin as he approached the brake in his car, and the resulting facial contortions were positively hilarious, if unfortunately missed by the camera. Last and without question least, Runaway Train (#981) marked my fourth Zamperla mini-mouse, showing once and for all that I really do have no shame.

The only other ride we tried out was Tomb Raider, a moderately decent target shooting ride. At Lauryn's request we rode twice, and by round two I'd figured out how the targets worked and hit just about all of them. Unfortunately the ride doesn't have any scoring, which really defeats the purpose of a target shooting attraction in my view, but what do I know?