Dreamworld - Sep 2010

We bought season tickets to Dreamworld / Whitewater World and talked Varian's sister Lani and her boyfriend (now husband) Cameron into buying them as well.

  

The claw ride above was crazy intense. I sadly only got to ride it once. I couldn't convince those lightweights to do it again with me :) and the next time we went we were expecting and so things like a giant spinning vomit wheel was off the possibilities for me.

I convinced everyone to take photos before we went down the dump-you-with-water log ride. (Sigh - poor straightened hair.) And there are our "after" shots.

  

Mid day we went over to the water theme park "next door." So I really like water parks, but a little known fact about me is that I do have a bit of a fear of water slides. When I was a kid I saw some movie where the would-be-killer unscrewed the bolts from a water slide and the protagonist goes down the big twisty water slide which then comes apart and they're barely hanging on for their life. I don't even remember if the person lives or not. All I remember is the message that water slides are a potential death trap. 

Add to that the summer at Raging Waters where my dare-devil mother insisted on going down the Acapulco Cliff Dive again and again till I was thoroughly scarred and swore never again to ride it, and the fact that my parents really never taught me how to swim = waterslide phobia. 

But I was suppressing those childhood fears and we were having a grand ol' time at the water park. They have this crazy group funnel ride that is so amazing (see picture above), I absolutely loved it! But then we decided to go on dum- dum- dummmmmm......

THE WEDGIE

So the name itself is only one accurately named torture of said ride. They should have called it the claustrophobic-trap-door-death-tube but I heard that name was already taken. :) Oh just writing this post is bringing back the awful suppressed memories of that ride and gives me chills. Here's what their website has to say about it:

[Gut wrenching, heart pounding, teeth chattering. That’s the feeling you get when you step inside the launch chamber of WhiteWater World’s newest power slide, The Wedgie, cross your arms behind your head and peer face first over the sissies five-storeys below. The wildest doom drop of them all, The Wedgie has no nanny mats and no support tubes. As the trap door triggers, it’s simply fast flesh on fibreglass as you plummet feet first down a near vertical descent, barrelling through a human sized helix before smashing into the splash pool down below. Here the classic Aussie Cossie braking system kicks in and you feel the fast tug on cheeks as your bathing suit once again assumes control, giving “rise” to the slide’s bold name. The Wedgie is not for the faint hearted, the loose pants brigade, or anyone under 130cm in height. And, it’s only on impact that you realise you’ve been “Wedgied by WhiteWater World”.]

So yeah, basically you climb into what looks like those tubes that they use at the drive through window at the bank. You have to interlock your fingers behind your head, and then the lifeguard running the ride counts down into the loudspeaker until dropping the floor out beneath you, at which point your body slams into the tube below as it starts to loop and twist and eventually plummets you into the splash pool at the bottom where you emerge coughing and sputtering and as promised, try and modestly dislodge your swimsuit bottoms which have at this point ended up somewhere around your ears.

So Varian went first and gave us a big thumbs up sign at the bottom (he said later he wasn't going to tell us how awful it was because if he had to do it, so did we). Then it was my turn but I truly was terrified. To get in that vertical capsule felt like a coffin and I could hardly make myself do it. Cameron said I had to take one for the team since we had "encouraged" him to go on the tower drop ride earlier that day. The lady said that it would only last 7 seconds and that she'd drop me fast. Oh I can still feel my insides churn as I remember forcing myself to get in and wait for the floor to drop beneath me. What I should have been focusing on was taking a deep breath and holding it in preparation for the gallons of water that would be dumping almost continuously on my face.

It was horrible. Truly horrible. The floor dropped and my body fell straight down until my ankle smashed into the slide as it began to curve. As I mentioned before there was water just pouring into my face and that was probably the most prevalent aspect. Yes my body was getting slammed and spun around, yes I was going fast, yes I was in this teeny tube with very little space around me, but all I could really think at the time was "I can't breath, I can't breath." But the somewhat encouraging remark from the lifeguard came to mind that it only lasts 7 seconds. So I started counting in my head knowing that once I got to 7 I would be able to breath again. Ugh. I think I made it to about 5 Mississippi's when I came hurdling out of the tube and tried to pry my swimsuit back in place and clear my lungs of all that water. Even standing up at that point was painful. At least it was over.

Lani and Cameron came sputtering out behind me each one with our different injuries - scrapes and bruises. But yes all wedgied. Seriously, was that supposed to be fun? The rest of the group, who I don't think were plagued by the subconcious fear of a murderous screw-loosing villian, also disliked the ride. We didn't go on that one again.

But despite that terrible ride, the day was a success. It was fun to get to know Cameron better. I think it was the first time that I had been away from baby Jaren for a whole day thanks to Michaela, my mother-in-law, for taking him and that was exciting just to get a "day off" and be with Varian. It was a really nice day. We ended it off by going back over to Dream world and hitting as many rides as we could, and a few go's playing laser tag which was really fun.