Ultimate Country Park

The weather hasn't been particularly nice on my last few visits to Lightwater Valley so the photos show the park in quite a wet gloomy light, which creates a certain mood, the park is a very green park, there's lots of dark green to it which is interrupted by grey areas where the more recent additions to the park have been concreted in. When the sun does shine though the Yorkshire countryside really does look glorious especially when on the scenic lift hills of the Ultimate

The Ultimate is very unique coaster, which takes passengers on a rampage through 44 acres of woodland, the two lift hills provide overly large drops into relatively low terrain hugging courses which feature sneaky dips providing pops of airtime, zig zags in between trees and bizarre long flat straight sections of track, allowing the trains to charge across the forest floor. Ultimate plays a little more roughly than other roller coasters but yet oddly not in an uncomfortable way, this really is a lot of fun to ride, it really feels like you've been on quite an adventure when you get back to the station, there certainly will never be another roller coaster like it

Some more unusual attractions can be found at the park including the bizarre skate karts, in which you roll down a meandering concrete track on a trolley not too dissimilar to one a mechanic would use to slide underneath a car.

Lurking somewhere in the park is a mystery maze attraction, it doesn't have a name, so HighExtreme have christened it "Random aMAZEment™" you won't find it on a park map and we don't want to spoil the fun of finding it, we won't go into too much detail other than it's a maze of random amazement!

Another 'only at Lightwater' peculiarity is the Toad Hole, a very individual shuttle water chute ride, its not often you find yourself rolling down the side of a hill inside a wooden skip, plunging into a pond, its odd yet very fun experiences like this, that give Lightwater a very strong personality.

Recent rides added to the park are more generic, including Eagles Claw an afterburner ride, Black Widow's Web enterprise ride, Grizzly Bear a zyklon coaster and Twister a spinning mouse coaster

The more established rides at the park took some familiar rides such as pirate ship and a wild cat coaster and gave them a more personal touch by installing them over a waterfall in a forest clearing as with the Wave or underground in a mock up of a sewer as with the Rat Ride

Rare photos above show the Ladybird coaster with it's cars covered over to protect them from the heavy rain, the Ultimate stuck on the first lift hill, and what's the photo of a concrete square you may ask, well its one of the footers for the former Batflyer coaster!

You may be wondering what the path marking "give way no right turn" is about, well this is left over from what used to be the BMX track, this was one of the first attractions at Lightwater Valley, the track is still in tact, however there are no longer any facilities to get the bikes.

There is also a photograph showing the former park entrance gates, if you click on the thumbnail you can see to the left of the photo are three narrow gates which used to be entrance gates for the admission kiosks and the larger gate to the right of the photo was the park exit, there was a canvas roof which protected this gate from the elements

Lightwater Valley's development has been sluggish over the past few years, the new rides are low cost and often pre-owned, funfair rides plonked down without any effort or sense imagination, it's time the owners spent a few extra bucks on sprucing the place up, sorting out the landscaping and getting it looking smashing once again.

Despite the blandness of the newer attractions, Lightwater Valley remains quite a pleasant change from the usual theme parks, with the rides spaced out in quite a scenic and more natural setting, which provides an enjoyable alternative to the full-on mayhem of some themed parks

Pop A Pic