Nepal – Day 8

Shahzad & I headed to the hub at Benepa to pick up the last of the tarpaulins that we had received from India.

On the way we stopped off to take some photo’s of the Kailashnath Mahadev Statue which according to Wikipedia is the world’s fortieth-tallest statue, four below the Statue of Liberty.

The statue depicts the Lord Shiva, which is one of many Hindu gods and is 144 feet tall. It is made of copper, zinc, concrete and steel, and is located on the border of the Bhaktapur and Kavrepalanchwok districts, which is about 20 km from Kathmandu.

There is also a water park called Kathmandu Fun Valley at the foot of the valley which would normally be packed with people but at the moment lies dormant due to some repairs that are obviously being made after the earthquakes. Construction finished in 2013 and on opening day it had over thirty thousand people turn up to experience the first of its kind in Nepal.

After we had picked up the tarpaulins we headed to Sana Byasi Camp to drop them off for future use as temporary shelter and water proofing for the many tents that are starting to deteriorate due to the inclement weather. Nepal is almost at the end of the monsoon season, when it rains it really rains!

While the tarps were being unloaded we made a quick visit to see one of the celebrations that were taking place close, by that honors those that died during the earthquake.

Much of the afternoon was spent reconciling databases while Ralph (the second Kiwi deployed) packed his bags in preparation for his flight home that night back to Auckland. Obligatory photo’s were taken at Sisters Cafe & Beauty and then we saw him off at the airport.

Now the International team is down to four. However, Heather joins us from South Africa on Sunday.

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Movie World Revisited…

Thursday saw us returning to Movie World to do all the rides and shows that we missed out on last time. And for others to experience for the first time some of the rides that they weren’t to sure of first time around…

No sooner had we arrived and the first stop after dropping off our bags to the lockers was the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster. This ride had to be the most utilised ride in the theme park, as the younger ones loved it and pretty much after every other ride came back to Scooby for another go.

We then headed over to the Hollywood Stunt Driver arena as the first time around we missed this show due to the amount of people that were queuing up. However, today the crowds were a lot less and we were able to walk straight into the arena and got a front row seat. Grace even got to star in the show…

The show featured plenty of car chases (as well as a motorbike doing wheelies), gun shots and a spectacular explosion at the end. During the show one of the police cars split in half and as it was being chased one of the race cars went airborne, jumping from one roof top to the other before exploding into a great ball of fire.

We then moved on to experience some of the other rides around the park.

Emily at one stage in the afternoon came to Annette & I beaming as she had just done the Batwing Spaceshot, a rapid 4.5G vertical launch up a 60 meter tower. She ended up doing this ride at least 3 times, loving every second of it.

As the day wore on I even coaxed Annette into experiencing the Superman Escape which is according to the Movie World website “an unprecedented rollercoaster ride experience which travels 0 – 100 kilometres in just 2 seconds! With 760 metres of vertical climbs, weightless drops, head spinning twists and giant G-force turns, SUPERMAN Escape completely redefines the coaster experience.” Annette had done it but she was visibly shaking when she got off the ride for about 10 minutes afterwards vowing to never do it again…

This time around the whole group of us did the BATMAN Adventure – The Ride 2 which was an interactive adventure through Wayne Manor’s Library, the Bat Cave, and then into a computer generated flight simulator where we took on the villainous Catwoman, Mr. Freeze and The Joker.

As the day came to a close we watched the Parade and had another ride on some of our favourite rides before heading to catch the bus back to the units. So in the words of Bugs Bunny – that’s all folks! Well at least until the next death defining experiences that we get to enjoy…

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Water slides galore…

Ok maybe not quite as many as at “Wet ‘n’ Wild” but still enough to have plenty of fun at – Tuesday saw us take on the thrills & spills of the water slides at WhiteWater World which is located right next door to Dream World so with our 2 Park pass once we got tired of the water slides or wanted to warm up a bit and explore Dream World again we could…

Once we had all changed into our togs the first water slide that we challenged ourselves with was ‘The Rip’

We were “launched from the 16 metre tower into 12 metres of pitch blackness before being blasted into a massive whirlpool of high speed revolutions, we were eventually sucked into the corkscrew core and blasted through a huge curtain of water to experience a momentary weightlessness before plunging into the pool below”. Emily to start with wasn’t too sure of this ride but no sooner had we reached the bottom she was ready to go again.

We then headed across to ‘The Bro’, the Blue Ringed Octopus gave us the opportunity to go head to head in a competitive high speed race to the finish line at the bottom. Emily held on with all her might and appeared out of the tentacles first but Christina, Annette & I whizzed past her on the final sprint to the finish as we had a much heavy body mass.

We then took on the ‘Super Tubes HydroCoaster’ & ‘The Green Room’ which were both really kool! But by this time Emily was starting to get just a tad cold although the sun was shining the breeze was quite cool…

      

So while Annette took Emily to get changed into something warmer I took Patrick & Christina across to ‘The Temple of Huey’ & ‘The Little Rippers’ where we took on the ‘Screamin Right Handers’, ‘Broken Headz’ and the ‘Cut Snake’.

The others had all headed back to the changing rooms and it wasn’t long before Patrick followed suit so it left Christina & I to take on ‘The Wedgie’ (Jobe had already done this one earlier on in the morning but he was the only one game enough to take it on)

I got Christina to go first so that she didn’t chicken out and no sooner had she stepped inside the chamber, crossed her ankles and put her arms in the brace position she was gone plummeting down five storeys at breakneck speed emerging out the bottom with a splash.

Then it was my turn to experience the wildest drop of them all! No wonder they call it ‘The Wedgie’ at the base in the “splash down pool the Aussie Cossie braking system kicked in” and the rather fast tug on the butt-cheeks told me how this water slide got its bold name.

We then had a couple more goes on the Green Room and the Hydrocoaster before heading off to catch up with the others who had gone through to Dream World where we spent the rest of the afternoon going on some of our favourite rides from the other day.

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Retail Therapy

I don’t know why people call walking around a shopping centre ‘retail therapy’ especially when you have a group of children that want this and want that knowing full well that their pockets are devoid of money – But this is what we did on Saturday to take a breather from the adrenaline of the theme park rides we headed into Surfers Paradise for a look around.

While we were there though we came across a really kool attraction that if you are ever in Surfers Paradise you just have to do “Infinity”.

INFINITY is a mind-blowing journey into spectacular, futuristic maze like worlds of wonder – an extraordinary series of around 20 multi-sensual environments filled with unique special effects, atmospheric sound fields, ultra groovy music and illusions that appear to go all the way to infinity! The first of its kind in the world, INFINITY is an exciting, hilarious, interactive experience with unforgettable impact. It’s fun for all ages, great family entertainment and can also be done as a group or even as a team building activity. The incredible INFINITY journey takes around 40 minutes…

The only problem is that the older children wanted to rush through the experience while us older ones wanted to prolong the experience for as long as possible… They have their own Blog featuring some videos and pictures so you might want to check it out for yourself before you come for a visit – but I encourage you to check it out as it’s well worth it!

In the afternoon the two families parted company – The Voice’s headed off to check out the Haunted House while the Bray family headed off to check out Pacific Fair and to catch-up with the Medland’s who are currently C.O’s of the Gisbourne Corps and are heading back to NZ at the end of the week.

As far as the retail therapy side of things I did get the opportunity to check out JB Hi-fi and was able to pick up some DVD’s to add to my collection (not that I need anymore – but hey!) And we picked up some other bargains while we were at it…

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A day at Movie World

We set off a bit earlier to the Movie World theme park on Friday morning so to avoid missing any time on  the rides.

Once we got through the gates we headed off to watch the 4D Adventure of ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ which involved sudden movements of the seats including tilting and jarring actions simulating dramatic action as it appears on the big screen, after Emily’s bravery yesterday I was a bit surprised that this upset her quite a bit. I dunno, maybe it had more to do with sitting next to her mum…

Emily had much more fun on the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster and even Annette seemed to appreciate that one a bit as the older children headed off on their own to explore the park. It wasn’t long before we caught up with them again emerging out of the ‘Wild West Falls’ soaking wet. As Linda, Mike, Annette & I queued up with Emily & Grace they were off again on their next adventure.

As we emerged wet from our travels on the ‘Wild West Falls’ we were greeted by a crowd waiting in anticipation for the Western Town Show Down which was quite entertaining although I’m sure the children didn’t understand the majority of one-liners and jokes.

We then headed off towards the Kids’ Warner Bros. World to experience the Road Runner Rollercoaster before grabbing a variety of chips for lunch (Spicy, Chilli, Bacon and wedges to name just a few).

After lunch Mike & Annette decided that they would much prefer looking after the younger children while Linda & I took the older ones to experience some of the “Big” rides. I think the reality was that they were chicken! But hey each to their own – anyways, Shyvonne & Jobi joined Linda & I to go on the Lethal Weapon which they had already been on earlier with Patrick & Christina.

And then Linda & I coaxed Shyvonne & Jobi into doing the Batwing ‘Spaceshot’ by the time we were strapped in there was no turning back & at this point I think Shyvonne was trying to hit Jobi but couldn’t quite make contact… Within a few seconds our stomachs were trying to catch up with the rest of our bodies as we started descending and then we were bouncing back up and then down before touching ground again. I’m sure I heard a few swear words coming out of Shyvonne’s mouth as we went up and down again…

Then we went to line up for the Superman Escape – finally Patrick & Christina located us, or should I say we them, as they were in the queue a bit further back than us… Shyvonne was freaked that she was going on this ride and was constantly asking if she’d be able to cope with it – If she’d done the ‘Wipeout’ the day before she should be fine (anyways she’d already done the Batwing & loved the Lethal Weapon so she should be fine). And although the queue was reasonably long I reckon it was well worth the wait – That feeling of weightlessness as you emerge out of the building and get to the top of the first climb at break-neck speed and the positive and negative g-forces that you experience as you go round was awesome! The only downfall as with most rides is that it’s over not long after you finally get seated…

We caught up with the rest of the group and tried to talk Annette & Mike into doing the Batwing but they wouldn’t have a bar of it so Linda & I went on again (video to come) before we all went on the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster as a family group to finish the day…

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The Dream World experience…

Thursday saw us at Dream World for the day taking in all the thrills & spills of the theme park rides. And I must say that Emily takes after me in relation to making the most of it when it comes to facing your fear and doing it anyway…

After wandering around for a while and doing some of the tamer rides such as the Log-ride & Vintage Cars etc. We headed to Wiggles World Annette headed off to get some supplies and the older children headed off on their own. Mike, Linda, Grace, Emily & I headed off to have a go on the Moto GP ‘roller-coaster’ and although Emily was to small to go on the bikes by a mere 5cm she couldn’t hold back her excitement to go in one of the side-cars. When she was buckled in and set to go she was starting to look a bit worried and as she approached the first corner the look of terror was on her face but as she approached the second she had a huge smile on her face. As we approached the finish line she was like “can we do it again, can we do it again.’ Which we did! we had two goes before Mike, Linda & Grace had even got on for their first go – And I’m sure if Emily could she would have spent all day on just that one ride but we moved on to even bigger things…

We headed for the Tower of Terror, and this time Annette who is not really into big scary rides had caught up with us. Mike who it would appear is also not really into big scary rides either was facing his fear, as we walked up the stairs I think Emily was sensing the vibes from her mum and Mike as she was getting just a tad concerned – but no sooner than we were seated she was ready to go… well sort of! Woosh heading backwards at a great rate of speed with a high-pitched squeal coming out of her mouth she was just a tad freaked out and then we’re heading outside, the heat of the sun hitting us for a few mere seconds as we head (backwards still) 3/4’s of the way up the tall tower before heading back down at a great rate of speed into the dark tunnel again. Emily’s comment when the ride was over “Is that it, over already.”

And then… we approached the Wipeout, Annette & Mike had glimpsed earlier from a distance this ride and were definitely not going on it.. I could see that Linda was not interested in giving the younger ones the option of checking out the ride before joining the queue, before we knew it we were being held in by both the overhead supports and supporting bar locking that in place. It started with a huge lunging swing backwards & then forwards before doing the loop-d-loop and then we were upside down, back to front, falling sideways, back-ways and just about anyways we could be thrown. The screams from Emily & Grace getting louder and louder as the ride went on. They both came off of that one saying ‘no way am I going on that one again’. But as the day wore on they would most probably have given it another go – maybe with a bit of coaxing…

In many ways the Cyclone roller-coaster paled into comparison as both Emily & Grace skirted around the tracks – although for Annette & Mike (being roller-coaster virgins by the sounds of it) they were both a tad skittish by the time they got back down on hard ground. Emily & Grace were set for another go…

The Fun continues with Movie World tomorrow…

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