Richard Bannister

Jawa Timur Park 1 is a combination of amusement park, water park, and cultural exhibition geared at young families. The entrance leads through a variety of historical exhibits, which cannot easily be avoided; one has to pass through the whole lot before coming to the ride area. Were I not visiting an amusement park I'd have considered spending a bit of time looking around at the exhibits, but today there were more important things on my mind!

We began our day with Ulat Coaster (#1766), a Golden Horse Fruit Worm and a very small ride that barely meets the definition of roller coaster. This one has a posted height limit that would preclude most adults from riding, but this is not strictly enforced, and the staff found it amusing to watch me shoehorning myself into the seat. I'd previously ridden another version so I knew that it was possible; it just required compressing my legs a bit.

My next stop was at the powered Dragon Coaster, but I quickly discovered that it was out of commission today due to motor trouble. Staff were actively working on it throughout my visit, but the number of pieces sitting around and the gesticulations of the mechanics made it fairly obvious that the problem wasn't going to be fixed in a hurry. On similar lines, the brand new Volcano Coaster was still under obvious construction, with a missing piece of track near the brake run.

The largest ride in the park at present is a coaster built by Golden Horse. Spinning Coaster (#1767) is afflicted with the same triple restraint system seen on the versions in China; a lap bar, a seat belt, and a chain attached to the lap bar. Today guests were only being allowed a single ride apiece, with wristbands being marked to indicate once this had been taken. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to another lap regardless; the ride was fairly violent, with the sledgehammer straightening device on the brake run being the final assault inflicted by a thoroughly ghastly ride.

I also tried two ghost walkthrough attractions, named Ghost Mansion and Ghost Hunter respectively. As I write this trip report I'm not able to remember anything about either of them, other than the fact that I thought both were pretty good. I also tried the 4D Cinema, though in this case the film in use, Robin Hood, was fairly uninspired; the only saving grace was the fact that all the effects were working properly.

Many amusement parks have ride exits that run through a gift shop, but Jawa Timur Park 1 has taken this to a new level with the main park exit passing through what can only be described as a shopping market. Those leaving have to follow a zig-zag route past a multitude of vendors selling all manner of tat, and the length of the path is startling; though I didn't time it, it has to have been a five minute walk. It was tempting to go back to the start and film a video, but in the end I figured I'd rather move on to my next destination.

It's tempting to accuse the owners of the Jawa Timur Parks of lacking imagination, given that they've not bothered to think up an interesting name for their second park. In reality the overall branding of Jawa Timur Park 2 appears to be used mainly for marketing what is really best described as a resort; a museum, a hotel, and the Batu Secret Zoo, the latter being the subject of this trip report. I've got to admit a certain amount of curiosity as to what original Indonesian word was mistranslated into secret; the local community certainly appears to have noticed that the zoo exists.

Inside the gates one can find all of the animal species one might expect, mixed in with a small selection of amusement rides. The various attractions have been laid out around one continuous path that runs through the entire facility, and it's surprisingly lengthy; the main ride section is a good fifteen minute walk from the front gate, and I'm glad to say it's also a good distance away from the animals, so that they are not tormented by the screams of riders. There's also a fringe benefit there for nature lovers, who can spend time in the zoo without the same screams bothering them.

The first coaster I found was Shark Coaster (#1768), a family ride from SBF with two helices that was driven by two separate tyre sections. The layout could be thought of in broad terms as a non-powered version of the twin helix Zamperla Dragon. It's always nice to see a kiddie coaster that isn't one of the ubiquitous Big Apple designs, and to that extent I enjoyed this one for its novelty value.

One of my personal goals at the moment is to complete the set of wood coasters on this planet, and while this is obviously a moving target I've managed to gradually reduce the outstanding number over the last few years. That's probably why I'd been really looking forward to riding Animal Coaster (#1769), a rare example of a wooden wild mouse. This particular model was originally manufactured in 1962, and operated in Australia for many years before being exported to Indonesia at some point in the mid-2000s.

I'm thrilled to report that this ride was everything that I'd hoped it would be. The new owners have rebuilt it with a huge amount of care, and the result is a coaster that is very involved without being rough in any way. The ride has been repainted for its new home, and all nine cars now have elaborate (and different) decals that really look the part. In short, Animal Coaster is a classic ride and one which would rate very highly for any coaster enthusiast. My only criticism of the ride is a selfish one; it'd clearly be far better if it was built up a few miles from my house rather than in a remote park on the opposite side of the world!

The other unique ride at this park is Jelajah, which can best be described as a localised version of It's a small world, albeit with a much less irritating soundtrack. The animatronics in the Antarctica section were being worked on by engineers as our car rolled slowly past; I'd like to commend the park for keeping the ride open even while maintenance was in progress; had this been anywhere else in the world the ride would likely have been closed for the day.

Heavy traffic on the road from Batu back to Surabaya resulted in an expected two hour journey taking almost four. I'd planned to return to my hotel for a rest before heading out to Taman Remaja, but due to the late hour I decided instead to make a quick credit whore stop en route. It took less than fifteen minutes to tick off the Typhoon (#1770) and Mini Coaster (#1771), both of which were about what I'd expect from a medium sized fairground.