John
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
One of the perks of my job is the opportunity to visit far flung places. We do quite a bit of work for Gold Reef City, with several visits each year and I’ve just got back from my first trip out to South Africa. Luckily, I had time to try a few of the rides whilst I was there…
Park Overview:
The park is built around an abandoned gold mine. Much of the equipment is still in place, and the central section of the park consists of few rides, rather a recreation of a mining town. There’s a significant educational slant, with mine tours and information on the history of gold mining in the area. The park has a hotel, split across a number of buildings within the park itself – just step out the front door and you’re right in the action. There’s a lot of mining equipment lying around, from winding gear and mine carts to large engines and locomotives
The coasters:
GRC is most famous for it’s unique headline coasters, Tower of Terror and Anaconda.
Anaconda is the only Giovanola invert ever built, with a layout reminiscent of a Batman clone (loop – zero g – loop – corkscrew – corkscrew), only with a helix either side of a double corkscrew rather than the slightly more varied layout on the Batman clones. The ride lacks the punch of the B&M inverts, and there’s some slight shuffling though nothing like as bad as on an SLC. It’s a decent ride, if unspectacular.
Runaway Train looks a little like a Mack powered (if you squint a bit), however don’t be fooled by RCDB – it’s clearly not come from Waldkrich! The train itself is tiny, with only 4 cars, though it’s gained a car at some point in the past few years as photos on RCDB show only 3. I really wasn’t expecting much, as from the queue line it looks quite slow, however it’s got a couple of proper drops unlike most Mack powered coasters, and features a substantial indoor section with fairly decent theming, inside a mountain/cave/mine shared with the log flume. You only get 1 lap, though it’s a fairly long layout so that’s not too much of an issue, plus it helps with capacity which could have been unbearably low with only a 14 seat train. The newly added airgates are a big help here.
Jozi Express is a Zierer coaster that borrows a lot from the train design found on Knightmare/Lisebergbanan. The layout looks a little Schwarz-y too, but sadly lacks the high G helices you’d expect from one of Anton’s rides. For a family coaster it’s pretty decent, and a fair bit bigger and more thrilling than a Vekoma Junior. The first two drops in particular are fairly impressive too, not quite up to Knightmare’s psycho drop but still good fun.
Speaking of Schwarzkopf, Golden Loop is one of the few remaining original weight-drop shuttle loop coasters, this one was originally located at Carowinds. Riding one of these has been something of a quest for me after missing out on Thunderlooper and after waiting 20 years I’ve now done 2 in as many months after riding Walibi Belgium’s in August. My expectations weren’t sky high, as I’ve already done one and pretty much knew what to expect, but Golden Loop is an absolute delight. It’s the best of the park’s coasters in terms of quality, and probably my favourite overall.
Finally (well, ignoring Shongololo, the Big Apple without an apple) there’s Tower of Terror. Looking at it off-ride you get the impression that someone saw Oblivion and thought they’d have a go at making something similar. These days it’s rare for a coaster to intimidate me, but the home made feel coupled with seemingly ancient mining equipment is an alarming prospect. The use of the old mine equipment as the lift and drop support structure is a sublime touch and the elevator lift (hauled by a winch and cable much like the adjacent mine lift) is a far more fitting start to the ride than the standard lift hill the ride was originally built with. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect to have been done the other way round - for them to have experimented with the elevator lift but not be able to get to work properly, finally giving up and replacing it with a lift hill.
To accommodate the new elevator lift, a new section of track was built from the station. This includes an “S bend” and 180 degree turn, the profiling of which don’t offer any reassurance for anyone concerned about build quality, nor does the sharp stop as the car locks into the lift shaft. It’s safe to say the elevator lift is far more dramatic than the lift hill could ever have been and as the car ever so slowly edges out of the lift shaft and over the seemingly impossibly tight transition to vertical the result is far more terrifying than any B&M dive coaster. The twist on the way down is pretty brutal, especially on an outside seat but once into the tunnel the ride experience is very similar to Oblivion. The brake run returns to the home made feel, with a long stretch of mag trims bringing the car to a near total stop. The trims cannot be retracted, so the car crawls through the last section back to the station. All in all it’s a very bizarre ride, though hugely thrilling thanks in part to the intimidation factor the mine shaft drop offers. A word of warning though – with only a single car on the ride (and no sign of a transfer track or garage), coupled with a fairly long ride time for the track length and the result is a very slow moving queue, I’d estimate a maximum throughput in the order of 120/hr. Certainly one to head to first if it’s going to be a busy day.
Other rides:
The park has a decent selection of flat rides and water rides, plus a significant number of kids rides of varying quality.
River Ride was closed during my visit due to some work being performed on the lift hill. Unlike standard Intamin rapids it uses a pair of Archimedes screws to raise the water to the station. They look fairly impressive when running, but that’s all I can really say about this one as that’s all I saw of the ride, bar a few sections of empty channel visible from the paths.
Log Ride was open, but I didn’t bother riding as it appeared to be running only a couple of boats with a significant wait. It has 2 drops, one small and one about the size of the final drop on the Flume. The ride also passes through the same cave/mine as R(M)T. It looked alright, but as I was on my own I wasn’t prepared to wait.
Miners Revenge is a Huss Topspin, which I also missed out on due to extended downtime (despite it running flawlessly for our testing the previous day). It doesn’t use the standard Ripsaw cycles, but was running something akin to program 6. As all Topspins should, it also features fountains.
Dreamboat appears to be a Weber original, seemingly identical to Black Pearl at LWV. For some reason they only load half of the seats (the outer 2 rows) and it wasn’t fully inverting, removing the main purpose of the ride.
UFO is another eponymous ride, this time from Huss. Like the Dreamboat it’s operated well below it’s potential, only lifting to about 45 degrees rather than vertical. I skipped this one too as it seemed to have quite a long wait and I was more interested in the coasters.
Tornado is a Breakdance, though clearly not from Huss. I suspect it was made locally, but I’m not entirely sure. For a park model though it’s surprisingly good, with enough variation in speed to avoid the usual problem Breakdance rides have where the vehicles settle into a fairly bland rocking motion. If I’d done more of the others I’d declare it the best thrill ride in the park after the coasters, but I'm not really in a position to make such a bold statement!
General thoughts:
GRC doesn’t have a huge number of major rides, but has enough to keep you entertained for a day or so. Much like many of the UK’s minor parks, there’s not a whole lot behind the headline rides that you’d really want to do, but in this case the park makes up for it with the mine tours and other gold rush related offerings.
Ride operations are generally OK, but limited by the fact that all coasters run 1 train. Most of them have 2, but as the park is open year-round they always have one stripped down and 1 in service.
The park seemed busy most of the week, as due to the educational aspects they get a lot of school trips, the kids rides were busier on week days than on the Saturday as a result, though the thrill rides had longer waits at the weekend.
All in all, a pretty decent park. Not the sort of thing you’d take a 12hr flight to get to, but well worth a visit if you find yourself in the region.
Park Overview:
The park is built around an abandoned gold mine. Much of the equipment is still in place, and the central section of the park consists of few rides, rather a recreation of a mining town. There’s a significant educational slant, with mine tours and information on the history of gold mining in the area. The park has a hotel, split across a number of buildings within the park itself – just step out the front door and you’re right in the action. There’s a lot of mining equipment lying around, from winding gear and mine carts to large engines and locomotives
The coasters:
GRC is most famous for it’s unique headline coasters, Tower of Terror and Anaconda.
Anaconda is the only Giovanola invert ever built, with a layout reminiscent of a Batman clone (loop – zero g – loop – corkscrew – corkscrew), only with a helix either side of a double corkscrew rather than the slightly more varied layout on the Batman clones. The ride lacks the punch of the B&M inverts, and there’s some slight shuffling though nothing like as bad as on an SLC. It’s a decent ride, if unspectacular.
Runaway Train looks a little like a Mack powered (if you squint a bit), however don’t be fooled by RCDB – it’s clearly not come from Waldkrich! The train itself is tiny, with only 4 cars, though it’s gained a car at some point in the past few years as photos on RCDB show only 3. I really wasn’t expecting much, as from the queue line it looks quite slow, however it’s got a couple of proper drops unlike most Mack powered coasters, and features a substantial indoor section with fairly decent theming, inside a mountain/cave/mine shared with the log flume. You only get 1 lap, though it’s a fairly long layout so that’s not too much of an issue, plus it helps with capacity which could have been unbearably low with only a 14 seat train. The newly added airgates are a big help here.
Jozi Express is a Zierer coaster that borrows a lot from the train design found on Knightmare/Lisebergbanan. The layout looks a little Schwarz-y too, but sadly lacks the high G helices you’d expect from one of Anton’s rides. For a family coaster it’s pretty decent, and a fair bit bigger and more thrilling than a Vekoma Junior. The first two drops in particular are fairly impressive too, not quite up to Knightmare’s psycho drop but still good fun.
Speaking of Schwarzkopf, Golden Loop is one of the few remaining original weight-drop shuttle loop coasters, this one was originally located at Carowinds. Riding one of these has been something of a quest for me after missing out on Thunderlooper and after waiting 20 years I’ve now done 2 in as many months after riding Walibi Belgium’s in August. My expectations weren’t sky high, as I’ve already done one and pretty much knew what to expect, but Golden Loop is an absolute delight. It’s the best of the park’s coasters in terms of quality, and probably my favourite overall.
Finally (well, ignoring Shongololo, the Big Apple without an apple) there’s Tower of Terror. Looking at it off-ride you get the impression that someone saw Oblivion and thought they’d have a go at making something similar. These days it’s rare for a coaster to intimidate me, but the home made feel coupled with seemingly ancient mining equipment is an alarming prospect. The use of the old mine equipment as the lift and drop support structure is a sublime touch and the elevator lift (hauled by a winch and cable much like the adjacent mine lift) is a far more fitting start to the ride than the standard lift hill the ride was originally built with. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect to have been done the other way round - for them to have experimented with the elevator lift but not be able to get to work properly, finally giving up and replacing it with a lift hill.
To accommodate the new elevator lift, a new section of track was built from the station. This includes an “S bend” and 180 degree turn, the profiling of which don’t offer any reassurance for anyone concerned about build quality, nor does the sharp stop as the car locks into the lift shaft. It’s safe to say the elevator lift is far more dramatic than the lift hill could ever have been and as the car ever so slowly edges out of the lift shaft and over the seemingly impossibly tight transition to vertical the result is far more terrifying than any B&M dive coaster. The twist on the way down is pretty brutal, especially on an outside seat but once into the tunnel the ride experience is very similar to Oblivion. The brake run returns to the home made feel, with a long stretch of mag trims bringing the car to a near total stop. The trims cannot be retracted, so the car crawls through the last section back to the station. All in all it’s a very bizarre ride, though hugely thrilling thanks in part to the intimidation factor the mine shaft drop offers. A word of warning though – with only a single car on the ride (and no sign of a transfer track or garage), coupled with a fairly long ride time for the track length and the result is a very slow moving queue, I’d estimate a maximum throughput in the order of 120/hr. Certainly one to head to first if it’s going to be a busy day.
Other rides:
The park has a decent selection of flat rides and water rides, plus a significant number of kids rides of varying quality.
River Ride was closed during my visit due to some work being performed on the lift hill. Unlike standard Intamin rapids it uses a pair of Archimedes screws to raise the water to the station. They look fairly impressive when running, but that’s all I can really say about this one as that’s all I saw of the ride, bar a few sections of empty channel visible from the paths.
Log Ride was open, but I didn’t bother riding as it appeared to be running only a couple of boats with a significant wait. It has 2 drops, one small and one about the size of the final drop on the Flume. The ride also passes through the same cave/mine as R(M)T. It looked alright, but as I was on my own I wasn’t prepared to wait.
Miners Revenge is a Huss Topspin, which I also missed out on due to extended downtime (despite it running flawlessly for our testing the previous day). It doesn’t use the standard Ripsaw cycles, but was running something akin to program 6. As all Topspins should, it also features fountains.
Dreamboat appears to be a Weber original, seemingly identical to Black Pearl at LWV. For some reason they only load half of the seats (the outer 2 rows) and it wasn’t fully inverting, removing the main purpose of the ride.
UFO is another eponymous ride, this time from Huss. Like the Dreamboat it’s operated well below it’s potential, only lifting to about 45 degrees rather than vertical. I skipped this one too as it seemed to have quite a long wait and I was more interested in the coasters.
Tornado is a Breakdance, though clearly not from Huss. I suspect it was made locally, but I’m not entirely sure. For a park model though it’s surprisingly good, with enough variation in speed to avoid the usual problem Breakdance rides have where the vehicles settle into a fairly bland rocking motion. If I’d done more of the others I’d declare it the best thrill ride in the park after the coasters, but I'm not really in a position to make such a bold statement!
General thoughts:
GRC doesn’t have a huge number of major rides, but has enough to keep you entertained for a day or so. Much like many of the UK’s minor parks, there’s not a whole lot behind the headline rides that you’d really want to do, but in this case the park makes up for it with the mine tours and other gold rush related offerings.
Ride operations are generally OK, but limited by the fact that all coasters run 1 train. Most of them have 2, but as the park is open year-round they always have one stripped down and 1 in service.
The park seemed busy most of the week, as due to the educational aspects they get a lot of school trips, the kids rides were busier on week days than on the Saturday as a result, though the thrill rides had longer waits at the weekend.
All in all, a pretty decent park. Not the sort of thing you’d take a 12hr flight to get to, but well worth a visit if you find yourself in the region.