Ekka time comes to an end...

I was catching a bus home this morning from last night's date (yes it went well) and was shocked to see that the Ekka has already finished. All the rides are being torn down, and once again I didn't go along.

I haven't been to the Ekka since I was 15 years old - I went with my first girlfriend Fran and my best mate Matt and I used to love going only for the rides. The scarier the better really. The Zipper, the Turbo, Rock n Roll - basically anything that turned me upside down and threw me around everywhere was gonna get my pick.

Have you noticed that the rides at the Ekka over the years have been getting more and more extreme? The dodgem cars and the gravitron not good enough for today's youth? We now have things called "Insanity", "Power Surge" and "Mega Drop". I'm pretty sure they had a bungee bullet there this year (where you sit in a cage and they fling you up on two massive rubber bands). They are intense rides, not designed for little kids surely?

But I remember being thrilled with scary rides as a kid though. We used to jump off our 2nd floor balcony onto cushion on the grass below, so scary rides were definitely high on my agenda.

We went to Dreamworld when I was four - this was back in the days before the giant drop and tiger island. Hell they didn't even have any water slides or anything. The first ride we went to go on was the Thunderbolt. It's been torn down now, but at the time it was the biggest and best roller coaster in the country.

So Dad, my brother and I all lined up for this roller coaster, and straight away an attendant went "Hey... he's too small to ride". And I flipped out. Chucked the biggest tantrum on the planet. I was going on this ride no matter what.

This is a photo from that day - I found it at mum and dad's last week and scanned it in... I'm on the left with my brother (and yes we are wearing matching ET tank tops!)

They made me stand up against the "You must be this tall to ride" sign and I was way under it. Still, I continued to scream. A nice lady tried to calm me down by saying "I think the merry-go-round would be a more fun ride, don't you?". I must have given her the biggest death stare a four-year-old could muster. Mum just shook her head and said "No, he just wants to go upside down.". But it did stop me screaming - I think i realised my futility and just gave up.

Needless to say, I didn't get to ride the Thunderbolt that year - and I definitely didn't go on that fucking merry-go-round.