Headed to South Africa for Christmas

Yup, that's right. I'm taking a very long trip out of the country, to visit my mom for Christmas, who is teaching at the University of Limpopo.

While I'm there, I'll be taking my very first trip to an international amusement park, Johannesburg's "Gold Reef City." The park contains a B&M inverted coaster, a Schwarzkoph shuttle loop, a medium-sized steel non-looper, a Mack powered mine train, and then there is this thing:

It's apparently a coaster built out of the structure of an old gold mining tower, and has a 164-foot VERTICAL drop, and according to Rcdb, has 6.3 vertical g's.[:O] All I can say is "daaayyyymn..."

I'll also be going on a safari in Kruger Park, and spending a lot of time browsing around Cape Town.

You know you can expect photos and full trip reports once I get them. I'm headed to New Jersey to leave the country later tonight, and flying out Tuesday morning. Wish me luck!

Lol, that coaster is the sketchiest coaster alive haha. There's no pov's of it, there's no pictures of the full layout, or where you come out of the hole. Have fun! Hope your alive afterwards.

uh... 6.3?????? jeezus lord...

^No on-rides or full layout pics? Well, that's something I shall have to remedy, isn't it?[:D] Yay, POV camera!

EDIT: Yup, there are no full POV's anywhere. I did, however find this promo video, which at least shows the pullout. Again, I say "daaayyymn!"

Sounds like an interesting trip. Be sure to get us some pictures and whatnot. [:D]

Gold Reef City has always looked like such a fun park to me, I would love to get even one ride in on Tower of Terror. Oh also, Anaconda is a Giovanola Invert (I'm pretty sure their only one) not a B&M. Have fun, and bring back some video if you can.

^Really? Jeez, I didn't even know Giovanola made inverts...

[Coasterkidmwm]

Aren't you in school? How can you afford this?

^My mom's paying for it. She's a college professor who, thanks to Fulbright, has been teaching in South Africa for the last year-and-a-half, so she wanted to see me.

Yes, though, I am indeed a lowly student that only makes about $5000 a year working at the college mailroom, and cooking rice and buffalo wings for Cedar Point once a year. No way in hell I could afford this on my own. I'm actually in about $1500 of debt right now because CP kind of screwed me last summer by cutting my hours by 50%.

EDIT:
All right, folks, I'm off! Laptop's going into my suitcase, and I'm off to New Jersey, driving all night so that I can make my appointment to get my preventative shots at 8 am tomorrow morning. Wish me luck, and hopefully I won't die on the roads, like Master of Puppets and Weng8055 did. [;)]

After the pullout it keeps on going straight out of the tunnel, then makes a wide, slow turn to the brakes/station...it's a lot like Oblivion.

Have fun man...enjoy the giant orange invert of ugliness!

[Oscar]

Better damn get us some exclusive videos and pics or else you'll regret coming back

I'm pretty sure 6.3 g's can make you involuntarily lose bowel movement. Go poop before you get on.

I say live on the wild side and just hold it in.

[yoshifreak]

Heres a POV: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... id=9102710

[gouldy]

wow, that looks even lamer than Oblivion.

The drive to GRC is the most exhilarating. You?????????ll never be so chuffing scared in your life again!!!

[Coasterkidmwm]

Oblivion doesn't have the 6.3 G's however Gouldy.

I still think the undisputed "really high G's with pain" winner is Moonsault Scramble. That sucked spiked up to 6.2 G's and then held about 4.5 through the whole loop the first time, talk abut an ouchie!

The 6.3G is really just a spike, nothing to get all excited about. The fun thing about the Tower of Terror is just the intimidation.

UPDATE:

Today's the day I'm flying out. So, yeah, I have the next 17 hours to look forward to having my 6'2" frame crammed into a plane seat that was designed for people 6 inches shorter than me. Plus, my paranoid uncle is insisting that we leave 5 hours before the plane departs, so I'm probably going to have to tack another 3 hours of sitting around and doing nothing on to the flight time.

So, yeah, this is the only part of the trip that's going to really suck. I'll give a more interesting update in a couple days.

[Dirk_Ermen]

CJD, enjoy your stay there. And be sure to capture some nice footage for us [:)]
Oh, and why don't you try to meetup with dj-dj? Should be fun!

All right, folks, I'm back from South Africa as of 3 days ago, and I got enough video footage to make a park video of Gold Reef City complete with three POV coaster videos. The only downside is that there was no pick-your-own-seat option, so the videos aren't from the front seat.

I'm working on it presently, but it will likely be a while.

I will, however, be posting a complete park report with some pictures soon. The park was actually surprisingly good, and gave my top 10 list a new coaster. I'll post it in a separate topic some time this week.

Can't wait to read about it

Originally posted by cjd

The park was actually surprisingly good, and gave my top 10 list a new coaster.

10 bucks on Anaconda

^Bingo! That thing was awesome.

You survived!