From the keyboard of Dr Jan

Today I spent an amusing afternoon at Thorpe Park with Martyn, Avinash and some of Avi’s friends.

Martyn and I didn’t manage to get to the park before about 13:00, but it meant we avoided all the queues to get in

When we arrived, Avi & Co were waiting to go on the Colossus roller coaster. It holds the record for the roller coaster with the most ‘inversions’. The riders are upside down at 10 points during the ride, including a fabulous extended corkscrew which looked extremely elegant from the ground.

Martyn and I went on the Rumba Rapids with 6 random women. Fortunately we didn’t get very wet, but some of the women did.

After that we met up with Avi and the others and decided it was time for Nemesis Inferno. Here’s the official picture of me and Avi. Looks like we’re having a good time

Once you come off the ride, you exit from the platform and you can then join the Single Riders queue. This means you can go on the ride again much more quickly than if you started queuing again, as long as you don’t mind not sitting with the other members of your group. Whilst in the Single Riders queue, we met Mary, who had been on the Nemesis ride 57 times. Since the park opened this morning. Mary’s total for today bought her up to over 1200 rides this year. What a woman! Mary’s tips from the top were… The Nemesis is a much nicer ride than the Colossus because it’s smoother and less ‘choppy’. If you do go on Colossus, try and get on train 2 because it’s smoother than train 1 (there are only 2 trains).

Nemesis is not scary, it’s just enormously good fun. Although looking at some of the official photos afterwards, some people didn’t look like they were having a good time at all.

So, my overall impression of the park is that it’s very small. Certainly compared to, say, Alton Towers (another Tussauds establishment, in the Midlands). But we all had a great day out, despite the occasional showers.