As promised, here’s the trip report from West Midlands.
I’ve got to say it makes a change to be able to stay at home for a Live, all the Lives I’ve been to apart from Midland Mayhem II have required some form of overnighting somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I love going out and staying places!
So I hop on a bus to the ‘lovely’ city centre and head towards New Street station, I get a quarter of the way before realising that I was not going from New Street for a change and instead was going to Snow Hill. So I turn back the way I come and went to Snow Hill and brought my tickets to Kidderminster. The new fangled ticket machines that must’ve only been installed recently didn’t like my ticket and wanted to eat it. It comes back out eventually and off I went to the platform.
I then wait for the correct train as there were loads going to Kidderminster, I got the right one and met Will on the train at Smethwick Galton Bridge where annoying ticket inspectors wanted to see Will’s tickets before he even sat down, likewise, they done the same with me!
Much chatting about past and future Lives occurred and before we knew it, we were at Kidderminster! I also found a new use for a tripod on this train; to kill annoying flying creatures more commonly known as daddy long legs.
We get to Kidderminster and eventually locate the 292 bus stop, realising that if we got that it would involve and long wait for said bus and also realising that we would be late as well as walking for 10 minutes, we decided upon getting a taxi to the loveliness of West Midlands Safari Park.
The nice taxi driver (who didn’t speak – just the way they are preferred) charged us the reasonable price of £5 something and we were there very early!
We kindly paid the extortionate price of £11.50 for entry to the Safari Park and made our way into the park. We spotted a handful of goons in front so walked very slowly and had a look at the sea lions before calling Ian (we thought furie was still driving there, apparently not!) and asking where the meet up was!
I was bursting for a piss and so made our way into the actual park bit before realising no toilets were open, so made our way to the ones by the car park and bumped into Vadge, Tanya, Karen and Katie who were also bursting for wee related rides.
Much faff occurred then, in which I joined Vadge and Ian for two fags and Vadge also won a Santa’s little helper dog out the grabby machines to a triumphant hurrah similar to the one I done when I won one at Thorpe.
After what must’ve been an hour, we made our way to the amusements. The swinging death thing more commonly known as Black Fly was first, in which I chose to not ride and observe instead.
We rode the Rhino Coaster next which was bland and boring and also very rough and hastily left for the Twister coaster of death!
I decided to share a mouse with furie and SSIL_furie and just as the first load of CFers go out the station, the heavens open for the second time in the day which provided us with a mega spinney and fast ride! It was actually awesome because of the amount of spinning, I’m sure we had a proper waltzer spin!
Sheltering under the tin can photo shed in which I purchased a £1.75 blue bin liner from we soon made our way to the epically slow and mostly uneventful dodgems!
The amount of rain falling from the sky had subsided dramatically and we headed for the rapids! When I was last there, they had been built, but were opening later that summer, so this was a first for me. Still suitably clothed in a blue bin liner, I shared a tub with furie and SSIL_furie again and due to sitting on the poncho, I slid around the tub almost sitting on furie and squashing Steph!
Moist and bruised, we head for West Midlands newest ride, Venom! Get there, get on it and it breaks.
Some of us went on the mildly moist Flog Lume which was uneventful but moist.
Pile of **** followed, which was as it says on the tin, ****e! It must've been the quietist boat I've been on with CF! furie tried to make it more lively on the coaster side of the boat, which also failed!
Feeling rather bored at the lame attempts of rides, I bag lady for the ghost train and I was literally toppling over with the weight of the bags!
Following the ghost train, we do the gay lion ride, where the op looked scared for his ride as the majority of the attendees jump on it and look suitably unimpressed with it.
That is apart from Ciall, who looked ecstatic about riding it!
The spirally snake slide followed in which I did not like as the steps were awful. Such a slow slide in which all the way round I was pushing myself down and was greeted by a sea of cameras, mainly of a video sort.
Seeing that the caterpillar had a queue, Ian decides to go on the car ride which was one hell of a squeeze and also rather amusing to the ride op and any bystanders. After having my ribs squashed into the side of the car, we go on the caterpillar which over shot the platform after the initial two laps and then almost done it again. The train did over shoot slightly, but we were all still able to get out.
Lunch followed which consisted of sitting in the back of Nic's car ooooooooing at the music coming from John and Tanya's car much to the amusement of myself and people walking past the car. Lunch also consisted of spectacularly killing an uninvited wasp in the car which a random croc in the back of Nic's car! The wasp splat on the window looked rather like a person and I believe it's still there?!
With lunch consumed, back into the park where we walked into various places like the reptile house and the bat cave. Me and Nic go off to go on Venom as it had now reopened. I was severely dissatisfied with this ride. Det is far more superior.
Giving up with the park, we headed back to the meet up point outside the entrance. Group photos were taken involving a tiger bin and we split up ready for the amusing journey around the park of safariness.
Now split up and in various cars, we headed for the safari and as soon as we got over the vibrating bottom thingys, it started to piss down making it virtually impossible to take any photos until the rain had pissed off.
The safari part is going to be very tedious to write about as it's just not a good subject to write about. Once the rain had finally cleared and the windows were suitable clear again, ideal photo opportunities occurred.
Seeing the rides again, made me happy as after nearly 100 minutes of driving around looking at animals that generally started looking the same, we made our way out of the safari and parked up. Naturally, faffing occurred again.
Trying to work out how to get back to the train station was the next thing to do. It was either get the bus back to the station, get a taxi between three as by now we had worked out that caffiene_demon was also using public transport.
After discovering that Stone Cold was also bored of West Midlands, he offered to take us back to the station. What should've been a 15 minute journey took something like 35 minutes as we almost ended up back where we started after getting slightly lost.
After getting back to the train station at 5 and realising that there was a train at 6 past, me and Will hoped on that as Dan wanted Tesco related foodage.
I bided Will goodbye at Smethwick Galton Bridge and continued to Snow Hill where I met me mum and got a dress for my prom next month as Debenhams had that lovely 25% sale on that meant a dress was brought for £50!
I hoped you enjoy reading that as much as I did writing it!
Alton tomorrow probably!