h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The weekend didn't get off to the best of starts for me. The traffic through Birmingham was terrible. I spent at least 20 minutes just waiting to get on to the M6. Then another hour or so sitting in traffic actually *on* the M6... I don't think the roadworks they were doing helped.

I finally arrived at the campsite at about 6pm (I think), and found the other RATs without any trouble. Then the serious business of the weekend began - with a . When we were confident that most people had arrived (and hungry!) we took a stroll down the hill, to 'Ye Olde Star Inn'. Good food, good , and creative opening hours...

The rest of the group arrived at various times through the evening. A fun-filled -fuelled evening, which included an exploding bottle of blackcurrant... resulting in one of our group looking rather suspicious!

By 1:30am most of us were feeling , so we crawled back up the hill, and into our tents...

Well, most of us did. KerrAvon and Mr KA (aka Bruce!) couldn't be bothered to put theirs up!


Saturday seemed to start fairly slowly. Although it didn't take long to realise that KA and Bruce had disappeared. Different people woke up a different times, but the smell of cooking bacon must have done its trick. It soon came to light that KA and Bruce had headed into town to get something to smoke, and something to eat. By mid-morning, we were ready to brave the terrors of Alton Towers...

A short drive later, and we hit the first queue of the day - to get in to the car park. The weather was gorgeous, and several thousand people seemed to have had exactly the same idea as us, which meant we ended up parking in one of the car parks furthest away from the entrance. There *is* a monorail going from the car parks to the main entrance, but the queues for that were already huge. This being the case, we decided to walk.

Once we finally got in to the park, we met up with the rest of the group (we'd got slightly separated on the way in) and Jenny & Beth. Unfortunately, we chose what is possibly the worst place to meet up again - the first cafe in the park! After an hour and a half of people arriving, queueing for refreshments, and eventually eating them, we were fit for the first ride of the day.

To summarize the rides: I managed to go on the Black Hole, Enterprise, Submission, the Corkscrew, and the Rapids. Possibly something else too... I even managed to get the 'Amys' on most of the rides as well!

Having left the wet ride 'til last, we proceeded to get out of the park. At the same time as just about everyone else. So again, we decided to walk, rather than wait for a monorail ride...

We didn't go straight back to the campsite though! We took a detour into Cheadle for a bit of shopping... for barbeque food! Everybody seemed to have a great evening, despite the weather turning distinctly chilly. I was even forced to put some long trousers on - that's how cold it got!


Sunday was another slow start for most people. Although we did manage to get to AT much earlier than the previous day... and we didn't spend the first couple of hours sat in a cafe

This time we did things sensibly. Well, as sensibly as a bunch of researchers is ever likely to do things... First off, we went to the two biggest rides in the park (Air and Nemesis) to get tickets for the 'virtual queue'. This basically saves a lot of standing around doing very little, but tickets are limited, so you have to get in quick! Then we did the wet rides - the Rapids again, followed by the Log Flume. I managed to stay reasonably dry on the Rapids, but got absolutely soaked on the Flume... probably because I was at the front of the log!

A quick bite to eat, then on to the Runaway Mine train, closely followed by the Haunted House and the Blade (the 'Amys' seemed to enjoy the last two). Then it was the first of the two biggies - Nemesis. I'd done it before (a couple of years ago) so I knew what to expect. Some of the group had queued for front seats - which are obviously popular. So while the rest of us waited for them, we tried Dynamo. Then the big one - Air. New for this year, so I'd not been on it before. Instead of sitting down on the ride, you lie on your stomach, so it kind of feels like you're flying. There was a good photo of me on that!

It was at this point that I had to leave, as I'd offered Coral a lift to Stoke station. A great weekend I certainly hope to do it again sometime soon!

Then it was back to sitting on the M6 again, this time facing the opposite direction...