Skara Sommarland 17th of July - Tranan and Proslides

[Gazza]

Skara Sommarland 17th of July

The day after I went to Tusenfryd I went to Skara Sommarland.

The park is about 120km east of Gothenburg (Where Liseberg is located)

https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/skara-sommarland

This park was sort of a 50-50 for me in terms of dedicating holiday time.
The main reason to go here to to try Tranan, the worlds only S&S Free Fly coaster, but the park also has a few cool Proslides too, so i decided to give it a few hours. Wouldn’t necessarily be for everyone.

 

I didn't actually do a whole lot here, most of the rides are fairly generic, but still there was enough to keep me busy.

To get here you can get a train to Skovde (From Gothenburg) and then a bus to the park. Sweden actually has good buses. You’ll see coaches that form part of the local transport system and covered under the same fares that supplement the normal urban buses, and they run at a usable frequency, eg about every hour.

Only hiccup was the day was a Sunday, so trains start later, and I could only get to the park about an hour after opening. Not that it was really a problem.

First impressions is that the place reminded me of a bigger version of Adventure park geelong, lots of open lawns and picnic areas, a few lakes, with a smattering of amusement rides and water slides. They also had cable water skiing and some go kart tracks, so its definitely more amusement park than theme park.
The presentation was ok, they’ve done up some parts, but it still feels like an older park.

 

 

I started off with Spinner.
This is a Maurer spinning coaster back before they produced the XC2000 with its overbanked turns and cool stuff. It’s more like a normal wild mouse, but lacking any sort of steep drops. Good bit of spinning, but otherwise nothing to write home about.

 

 

Up next was Tranan. I’m glad I got to ride it since I don’t think another one will ever be built, except maybe if a random park in China decides it wants one.

The gimmick is that its kind of like a wing coaster, but the seats stay level like on a suspended coaster / 7 dwarves mine train, so the track can do twists and run inverted or upright, and the cars themselves never go upside down.  In particular the twists are interesting because one side of the car goes ‘over the top’ and the other sweeps underneath.

You sit in shallow seats with a seat belt that locks electronically.

Overall, it’s “okay”

Temporarily delving into some physics, but because the seats are so far off the heartline of the coaster, it makes some of the sensations of the ride feel a bit weird and awkward, rather than the “free fly” it purports to be. 
You imagine the car going around a corner at a certain speed. The seats on the outside are going around a wider radius, so go ‘faster’, and likewise the seats on the inside follow a smaller radius and go ‘slower’. Its a bit like when you are on a classic Whip ride and get that jerk of acceleration when you go around the pulley at the end.

So because of this you feel lurching like the train is hitting a brake, or accelerating suddenly whenever you reach a turn, and the swinging car is a bit wobbly. The layout is a few back to back turns and a couple of twists, so you well and truly can experience what the ride can do. For example see this pic of the first drop. Immediatley after coming off the first drop you feel like you slow down straight away in the inside seats because its almost like you are pivoting and turning on the spot. The outside on the other hand feels way faster.

So its still fun, an interesting gimmick and mechanically impressive, but doesn’t necessarily result in an enhanced ride experience. Temper your expectations

I got changed and headed into the water park. Yep you heard right, there’s an outdoor seasonal water park in a place with a harsh snowy winter, so  it makes it even more laughable when people said Melbourne was too cold for water parks. The water was heated, but it still felt a teensy bit cool.

They had a nice cloakroom rather than lockers which was a godsend considering i had my luggage.

They had a couple of those old school concrete slides (Like Mountain Rapids at AW or Krakatoas at Blue Lagoon) Quite lengthy and interesting, with a few bumps and pools.

 

Big Drop is a trap door freefall slide, but was interesting in that it went through an underground tunnel. I like freefall slides so another winner.

The Snakepit is a group of 3 generic proslide bodyslides. Proslide put a fair bit of kick into these, and they are pretty darn intense, particularly the green enclosed one.

The Racer is a 4 lane racer, A bit of a hold up at the top when a little kid freaked out when confronted with the view from the top and the prospect of riding head first, and then the Dad tried to convince the kid to go. Sheesh if the kid doesn’t want to go, then don’t waste time upsetting them by trying to force it. Good air on the dips by employing professional riding methods.

There was a Tornado Wave called Cobra but skipped that one.

The other one I wanted to try was Waka Waka, a really long raft slide with 4 of those proslide flying Saucer Elements. They are totally a gimmick of course since all they do is provide a slightly nicer view out of the slide on the turns, but overall it’s still an objectively good slide due to the ballistic pacing and force you get on the back to back turns. And it’s looooong.

I was done with the water park so grabbed a bite at the water park cafe and headed back into the dry park.

The queues on Tranan had dropped off so I did a couple more goes on that to cement my opinions on it and make the most of what would likely be my only time to ever ride it.

They also had Snake. I love these high speed booster flat rides, but this one was spiced up with an additional arm that makes the circular rotation more irregular, so sometimes you do a big circle, and sometimes an extra tight one with some force. At only 8 per cycle the queue moved a bit slow, but I got some relief when they called for a single rider.

Had a stroll around and looked at the rest of the park.

 

The last coaster was Gruvbanan, a mack powered coaster. The coaster is about 3 helices and some turns. 
One of the helices is in a big shed but it doesn’t really make it dark inside. The ride is built on a mound, with the queue cutting through in a trench underneath, so you walk through a long gold mine to reach the station, so points for them making that effort.

 

With time to kill till the next bus I did another lap on Spinner and a couple more on Tranan since it was down to a walk on at this point.

So overall, the park is pleasant enough, but I would only really bother if you are uber curious about Tranan. Otherwise, it’s nothing you wouldn’t have seen before.

 

Check out all the photos here:

https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/skara-sommarland

Edited October 20, 2022 by Gazza