La Qua (The Third and Final Time)

Because the group had failed to ride Thunder Dolphin due to bad weather the itinerary was shuffled about and some room was made available with which to revisit the park and get the rides in. Having already been on it I chose to take some pictures and ride the other rides I hadn't been on yet.

Here's Thunder Dolphin diving through the La Qua building. The ride definitely seems to be well received by those on it.

The ride going through the wheel. As I mentioned in my previous report you don't really appreciate this due to the size of the wheel.

One of the spikes from Linear Gale with the wheel and Thunder Dolphin in the background.

Linear Gale was the first impulse coaster ever built and coincidentally the first I'd ridden. How did it ride? It wasn't great to be honest but then it was the prototype and the concept has gotten better since.

At the far end of the park is a parachute ride from which I thought it would be a great place to take some pictures.

Not only was I allowed to take the camera onto the ride but I was also allowed to choose the pod to ride in. Nice one! Just a shame the ride seemed to be experiencing down time, or the station staff had lengthened the pre-departure dance. The train was nowhere in sight.

Linear Gale overlooking the main road. You have to love inner city parks. Why can't we have one in London?

Still had a bit of time to kill so I ran over to other side of the park to get some pictures of the dolphin, if it was running. You can see from this pic of the second hill that it did reopen, albeit briefly.

To get this picture me and another basically gate crashed a swanky restaurant on the top floor of the La Qua complex. Given the time of day I don't think the staff minded us running in and asking to take a picture of the ride but there was no way we could have done this at night. So we took the position and waited and waited and waited and waited. The ride wasn't running again and we didn't want to overstay our welcome so we took the picture of just the track and left. But the impending sunset made it worthwhile I guess.

And just as we leave the ride starts up again, so here's a shot of the train on the hill. A little bit of a frustrating couple of hours but I got good pictures which was the main thing I'd wanted.

Joypolis