Both on the way out to Hestra, and on the way back, I noticed an amusement park with a large wooden rollercoaster. Beth and I had figured there must be an amusement park nearby because we kept seeing young kids (and not so young) wearing these goofy looking pink rabbit ears. I got a yearning to try a wooden rollercoaster, something I’ve never been able to do to date. Once we got back to Göteburg we went to a tourist brochure display and picked up some information on Liseberg Park. Now the presence of so many young families made sense, it was a weekend get-away for people; take the kids to Liseberg Park (something like taking the family to Disneyland - though not quite as big, and with lots of games of chance… the favourite prizes being oversized chocolate bars, including the largest Toblerone I’ve ever seen).A little checking on the internet and we determined the park was open until 10 PM, which would give us time to go to the park and for me to ride the rollercoaster. It was at this point that I discovered the wooden rollercoaster is called Balder, and has been voted the world’s best wooden rollercoaster several years running. In rollercoaster fan circles the wooden rollercoasters are known as Woodies, and some people have made it their life’s passion to ride every wooden rollercoaster in the world. So after brief deliberation we decided to squeeze this little adventure in.
The gal at the reception desk must have thought we looked like walkers (which we are) because that was how she gave us directions when we asked. About 20 or 25 minutes later we were at the gate (it was now 9 PM), the admission person said “You know the park closes in one hour” which we assured him was enough time (though we didn’t get a break on the price of admission). Once inside we made our way quickly across the park (Balder being on the opposite side of course), looking for a token seller (the first booths were all empty, but eventually we found one and I bought my three tokens needed to ride the rollercoaster).
Beth was not going to join me in this adventure, instead she became the keeper of my stuff as I wasn’t about to have my money pouch, Rider hat, or camera go flying off into space on one of those sharp turns. At that hour the line up wasn’t too bad and within 15 minutes I was strapping myself into one of the rollercoaster cars. Then the cars began climbing a long, long hill of wood and steel to the top of Balder, then whoosh we dropped at a 70 degree angle and the ride was in full speed.
I don’t know why, but I start laughing and yelling “woooooh” on rollercoasters, this happens spontaneously, and for the next 2 minutes and 15 seconds that’s exactly what happened. I can’t compare it with any other wooden rollercoasters since this is the only one I've ridden, but it certainly was a great ride (the ride seemed less jarring than most of the metal rollercoasters I’ve ridden). We have a picture to prove it, one of those ones taken by the amusement park which you can purchase for an arm and a leg after the ride.
After I had my ride on Balder we walked around the park looking at rides that you would catch neither of us on (ones with spinning involved simply make me sick - in fact the only amusement rides I really enjoy are rollercoasters, and now I can say that I have ridden one of the best in the world). We decided to grab a bite to eat in the park, and expected typical fair food, but I had a sausage in a baguette and Beth had little meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberry sauce - and both dishes were really tasty! So we sat in the growing twilight listening to the screams and laughter from people on the rides and enjoyed our simple meal. Then I took a picture of Beth by a giant Dala horse, something we’ve been looking for since getting to Sweden (a little one to take home, not a large one). Even though the park closed at 10 PM, most of the food places stayed open later, and people were not pushed out of the park, so we actually had a little more time to enjoy our food after which we strolled leisurely out of Liseberg and back to our hotel.
This was one of those pleasant, unplanned surprises of our trip. I had no idea the world’s best wooden rollercoaster was in Göteburg, but it was a bonus for me that it was, and that we had enough time to allow me to ride it. So we’ve been to Liseberg park, and I have ridden Balder (and have a picture to prove it), but in case anyone reading this blog was wondering, no we didn’t buy any pink rabbit ears.
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