Bakken April 2018

[Gazza]

At the end of April I was fortunate enough to have a spare Sunday afternoon in Copenhagen due to the nature of my trip, not nearly enough for a city like this.

But enough for an abridged 10 hour highlights package of the city centre, and time for a couple of parks, one of which was Bakken.

 

https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/DK/Klampenborg/Bakken

Bakken is easy to get to, 20 minutes on the S-Tog train from Copenhagen Central to Klampenborg, and then a pleasant walk down a residential street where you find the park hidden in some trees by a lake.

The park is the oldest in the world, and has the Rutschebanen wooden coaster dominating the centre of the park, with essentially an oval loop of path around it with amusements on both sides.

But i started on Tornado, which an Intamin spinning coaster. You sit in 4 seater cars that face inwards like the Gerstlauer spinners, but they have fabric OSTRs like on the Zacspins.

This thing is brutal, the spinning gets unlocked as soon as you leave the station, the lift is fast, and then goes hyperspeed at the top so you get flung off the top and slam into a turn, so its impossible to brace because you dont know which way you will be facing at the top.

From there it's high banked turns and helices and fast transitions (imagine riding the 2nd half of Jet Rescue with a spinning car). There is a floater hill halfway through the train just makes it over so you can see the necessity of why the lift has to speed up so much.

The ride is mostly enclosed by a building, but it doesn't really do much...not dark or anything. The ride is a bit like a Zacspin in that you'll either love the intensity or hate it, but I liked it.

Marihonen had no queue so I had a go on that.

Continuing around the main path was Vilde Mus , a fairly typical Mack wild mouse ,but it had a nice facade.

I should touch on how the park is. Basically individual operators own lots and have rides and restaurants and so forth, so there is some stuff that looks quite good, and other stuff that looks a bit carnie and old (Though very little actually looks temporary or anything like that), so the park has a certain chaotic character, like an old village or something. An amusement park in the truest sense.

 

A side alley led down to Rutschebanen which is a scenic railway type wooden coaster, meaning no upstop wheels to prevent you from flying off the track, so in the past it had a brakeman.

But recently it had a modern safety upgrade, so along the track are big flat brake plates that trim the speed a bit at various points.

It was still an enjoyable experience, with decent sized dips and hills, and quite a lengthy layout.

Getting back on the main path, I did Hurlumhej which is a vintage fun house, what really impressed me about this is that the whole house seemed to run off one motor, with all elements connected by belts etc, so everything moved in harmony, with entire rooms moving in an oscilating motion.

The first bit of this video shows it off well.

 

 

The next ride along was Racing, a flitzer coaster, which is basically a coaster that just keeps turning and dipping in one giant clockwise turn for the most part...It's sort of what i imagined Turbo Mountain or Geronimo to be like. Had a very retro feel, and the lack of harnesses in the cars was pretty cool.

The back of the park was mostly just spin n spews, restaurants and game stands.

 

There was a ghost train Spogelsestoget which was basically just run of the mill old ghost train with dodgy effects. If you've ridden the one at LPM you'd know what to expect.

More flats etc on this side of the park,

OMG this one was there though!

which eventually led to Mine Train Ulven.

Loved this one, its a mine train in name only. No boring slow turns or endless lift hills, this was a speedy, smooth family thrill coaster, with a confusing layout, drops into tunnels, leafy sections it would rush through, a bit of rockwork here and there. It had the Intamin flavour for sure.

Kaengaru was right there, and an opportunity to try an new flat ride type (and an obligation to ride anything Australian themed). It's just a spinning ride with seats that bounce up and down via air bladders, giving constant pops of airtime, though it might be a bit nauseating if it went on for too long!

Skyroller is a Gerstlauer sky roller. This version, where it raises up a tower and spins around is much easier to get flipping, so i got over 50 flips according to the counter!

I had limited time, and nothing else really took my fancy, so I did a re ride each on Tornado, Rutschebanen and Mine Train Ulven and took photos.

But just as I was about to leave I realised I had almost missed the Safari shooting dark ride. Cue the fake palm trees and fibreglass gorillas and lions. I was fully expecting something politically incorrect where you shot said animals, but instead the targets were giant wasps in the trees. My score was pretty measly; if you've ridden a few of these shooters you might have encountered some where it's a pain to get anything. I think i could count on one hand the number of targets I got.

Overall, Bakken was a good way to spend a couple of hours, with a few of the coasters and the fun houseworth the easy quick trip out there, as well as that fun house. You can also get individual ride tickets, but I found the unlimited wristband to worth it for the number of rides I intended to do. Denmark is one of the few places where prices are as high as Australia....It cost 269 DKK which is around 60 AUD.