Tripsdrill is an interesting park. It has the rustic sensibility of a country park or outdoor museum, but with the yearning to be something bigger than that. It is a lopsided park. On one side is the hardware - the launch coaster, the woodie, the bobsled, the Mack flume and the Hafema rapids. On the other is the heart of the park, all the old farmhouses, restaurants and 'magic woman slides', chilling in the sun without a care in the world.
While I can't imagine myself going to these sort of parks regularly, they do offer a nice break from your Phantasialands, Europa Parks and Disneys. Those parks have been so successful that they've been able to expand to the point where every square inch inside their perimeters is part of a designed and master planned built environment. That's fantastic of course and often works to great effect, but coming to a park where huge swathes of it genuinely look like they've been barely touched since the place opened in the 1920s is a great experience in a very different way.
But a cluster of restaurants and shops does not a theme park make, so how do the rides stack up? They're best described as a mixed bag. Let's tackle the double first - the Mack flume and Gerstlauer Bob that are both impressively intertwined inside a massive theming structure. After going on Chiapas a few days before, the ride system of the flume felt glaringly clunky, but it's still a great ride, with a hilariously abstract dark ride section involving elderly women flashing their boobs followed by beautiful young maidens. The indoor drop is unexpected if you hadn't bothered doing any research like me, and the considerable final drop packed a punch. The boats also give a hint into an alternative reality where Towers had stumped up the cash to get the Flume boats remodelled as bathtubs properly, in Waldkirch.
Karacho, backstage.
The ride tucked around the back is even better though. Consenting Sow, the first
ever coaster from Gerstlauer (why aren't geeks flocking here like its rollercoaster Mecca, one wonders?) isn't going to smash your brain out, but it's immensely fun from beginning to end. It starts off with a few of the regulation Wild Mouse switchbacks (yawn) before a few great swoopy drops, and then the ride pulls its best trick from up its sleeve - a straight line of giggly little airtime humps that will reduce even the toughest grown man to little girl-like shrieks of joy.
You can get a depressingly accurate impression of what Mammut, the woodie from Gerst, will ride like before you board. The funky dark ride scene at the beginning is cool (but very much Blue Fire's on a budget) but the coaster itself is the definition of tedium. It lumbers around (excuse the pun) showing off just how goddamn glass-smooth it is, while forgetting to actually do anything approaching exciting. It's a pity, because a woodie this smooth with a good layout would be great. But this ride feels like a Kings of Leon song - it might have started out interesting but it's since been sent along a production line which ensures that every edge has been sandpapered off and every thrill rounded out until it becomes the coaster equivalent of a lukewarm microwavable lasagne.
#BeneathKarachosStationSelfie
Karacho... Karacho... you want to love it desperately. But anyone looking for a Smiler beater in this... it just ain't. It
should be a nippy and forceful little Gerst in the line of Anubis and The Smiler, with intense inversions and whipcrack transitions. But it feels like a thrilling Gerst turned down to 80%. The first bit is great, with the indoor inversion and the 'hump' before the rolling launch. That launch is great too - rolling launches always are - but doesn't quite have the earthy kick of Anubis. The layout is OK, but just feels a little lacking somehow. It's quite long, but doesn't accomplish all that much. The inversion into the 'Oblivion-style' mist hole adds an unexpected reprise of intensity towards the end of the ride, and this is probably the highlight. A good ride, but not a great one.
So its up to the Hafema rapids to save the day which, as usual, they do splendidly. Weird, badly engineered and seemingly barely watertight, these rides shouldn't work but somehow always do. Just its sheer bloodymindedness wins your heart over. It's like every boat is trying its hardest to navigate a course that it's never been down before, and doesn't really understand the basic principles of staying afloat. All in all, a lovely park, though not one I'd rush back to until they get something new. They haven't yet got that coaster with the elusive 'x-factor' that makes you want to ride more than two or three times, but I have faith. They clearly know what they're doing, and it'd be nice to see them grow without losing touch with their roots.
