An awesome trip to Rainbow’s End with a group of friends! :)

My first visit to the Rainbow’s End amusement park was really scary yet super exciting, fun even. It was a decent experience with my friends I’ll never forget! 

 

Everything all started when one early morning Aeysha sent a text in the group chat suggesting we all go on a trip to Rainbow’s End. Although everyone was familiar with the place, yapping about how they went there as a child, I hadn’t a clue on what kind of place Rainbow’s End was; causing me to feel pretty awkward. I texted  Aeysha asking what that place was and she replied that it was an amusement park around the Manukau City Centre which was pretty close to where I live; weird I’d never heard of it before. We all then agreed to meet each other at 11am sharp, just me, Ayesha, Jaxon, and Leo.

 

At the designated time, everyone was there except for Leo. Obviously I didn’t think any of us would even expect him to come early knowing that he lives without a doubt way farer than any of us, plus traffic; In the end, Leo was only 10 minutes late so I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal.

 

After we got our tickets, we were all set to go and have fun! First, along the way we came across a large board that displayed the map of the amusement park. Jaxon implied that we would go to the ‘Gold Rush Mine Ride’, he said he loved to go there as a kid and, well, forgot how the ride felt like. Right after Jaxon had finished his sentence, instantly, Ayesha  excitedly said that once we had finished the ‘Gold Rush Mine Ride’ we should definitely try out the ‘Corkscrew Coaster’ as she pointed at the gigantic roller coaster I wanted to avoid going on with white rails that had several loops and different coloured carts hence creating a rainbow colour scheme. I don’t think making the rollercoaster give a fluffy unicorn and rainbow vibes would make it any less scary.

 

As we finished our discussion, we started heading to our first ride. I had no idea where this Gold Mine… Rush… ride thingy or whatever you call it was so I just instinctively followed my friends with Jaxon leading the bunch. When we got to the entrance of the ride I was blown away by the cowboy themed atmosphere inside the hut of where you que for your turn. All the walls were made of aged wooden planks for the aesthetic, same for the worn out lane ropes that everybody kept fidgeting with and hanging onto while they waited their turn. The queue was unbelievably long, thus, I thought we’d have to wait at least 20 minutes; we waited 30 minutes.

 

Finally, we reached the gate where you can actually go on the ride; it was like a miracle come true. The carts exactly captured the looks of a real mine cart, just like they came out of the Wild West; thank god each cart had two seats, otherwise I’d probably be scared to death with no one to sit next to.

 

I sat in the back cart beside Leo who also didn’t have the urge to sit in the cart in front of us, where Jaxon and Aeysha were. I was already nervous just sitting in the mine cart because right up front was a dark cave as if we were really gonna go mining. Suddenly, the Rainbow’s End staff told us to enjoy the ride before the carts gradually began to drive into the eerie cave. Inside the cave was totally pitch black, I closed my eyes while huddling with Leo as we both constantly squealed like eagles just when the ride had started. Whilst I had my eyes shut, in the silence, I could hear the cart’s loud rustling along with Aeysha’s and Jaxon’s snickering as we went further into the cave. I thought to myself, what if something jumpscared me from the ceiling? What if the roller coaster stopped in the middle of this darkness? Then, a bright light shone on my eyes causing me to open them. For a couple of seconds the cart had drove outside to display what seemed to be a backyard with trees and a small garden surrounded by nature including a coloured statue of a wise looking elderly person holding a lantern right before we went into another dark cave which to deference had signs at the entrance informing us that ahead was a dangerous and unstable mine. This time, I decided to open my eyes thinking “what could go wrong?”

 

Inside the second cave was also extremely dark but, it was also accompanied by colourful glowing crystals all around the tunnel. All of a sudden, an automated voice shouted “LOOK OUT!!!” right before the roller coaster took a sharp turn to the right, and you know who was on the right seat? Me. The sudden turn aggressively banged the side of my head and you know what the carts were made of? M-E-T-A-L. When I got hit, I let out a quick groan that none of them heard because the roller coaster was quite loud as mentioned before. With my hand, I covered the area of my head that now most likely had a bruise and tried to shrug it off. The cave’s path had ended and the rollercoaster drove outside again, blinding my eyes once more before the props outside greeted us with a skeleton in a cemetery which in my opinion, was a pretty random topic for a mine cave. As the ride continued, the carts swiftly followed the rails in many different directions until the most nerve-racking part was about to begin. 

 

The carts slowly crept up a tall ramp. That’s it. I’m really gonna die today was what I kept telling myself over and over and over repeatedly in shallow whispers that I think Leo might’ve heard from the extremely worried look on his face. As soon as we reached the top, I had my eyes completely shut, ready for the big drop. Then, surprisingly, this ‘big drop’ I was all worried about…didn’t exist? Instead, the rollercoaster was fastly guided down a straight path that very gradually descended throughout the rest of the  curves and turns this ride had to offer until we reached the end of that incredibly short ride.

 

While we got off the ride, Aeysha asked us how the ride was. Jaxon replied that it was a bit boring, but me and Leo were dazed and dumbfounded… on how exciting roller coasters were!!! Leo and I were really intrigued to try the Corkscrew Coaster next as could be seen with the reaction from the smile on our faces and how we kept asking the rest if we could go straight away. Though Aeysha was sorta confused at first, she was glad that we were now fond of rollercoasters; starting from then, at the same time we rushed to head to the second roller coaster, I could see Aeysha sneaking a genuine smile behind us.

 

Eventually, we got to the roller coaster and sadly for us it was closed because of some ‘technical difficulties’ as it said according to the sign on the top of the tall staircase. Aeysha was of course, a little upset that we didn’t get to try the ride, she told us it was the bestest ride she’d ever gone on during her trips to Rainbow’s End. I felt a bit bad that she didn’t get to go on her favourite rollercoaster.

 

Seeing that the ride was closed today, we then aimed to go get food from the ‘Hungry Miner Dining’ which was a food stall near the ‘Gold Rush Mine Ride’; I think it was pretty creative that both the buildings were related to each other. At the food stall, I ordered a hotdog that tasted better than average but, the cold sprinkled cheese on top of it was disappointing since the weather was chilly and so extremely windy that even our napkins started flying away.

 

Afterwards, we left the food stall to go on the ‘Stratosfear’, along with the ‘Bumper Boats’ ride. While we chased to go on another fun ride, Jaxon said he felt nauseous and needed to go to the restroom for a bit. During that time, the rest of us waited for him at the outside benches where we had a long interesting conversation making me almost forget why we were outside the restrooms in the first place. It had been well over maybe 15 minutes and everyone was really worried, so Leo suggested he go and check up on Jaxon. Turns out Jaxon had thrown up possibly because of an allergic reaction, he told us it might’ve been the coffee he drank earlier had dairy milk instead of soy milk. To end the day, Leo said he’d take Jaxon to the doctor’s in case anything gets worse because we all knew Jaxon was seriously allergic to dairy products. As Leo and Jaxon left, Ayesha and I decided to leave Rainbow’s End at this point so that we could finish some school assignments at her place.

 

Honestly, I had an enjoyable and amazing time at Rainbow’s End! I just really wished all those problems hadn’t occurred on my first visit there…