Watery ride's ripple effect (From Gazette & Herald)

Watery ride's ripple effect

ONE of North Yorkshire's premier visitor attractions hopes its new multi-million pound ride will pull in more families and provide a welcome tourism boost for the region.

With the opening of The Lost River Ride, reported in yesterday's Evening Press, bosses at Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo, Kirby Misperton, plan to top the record 1.4m visitors they had last year - with a positive knock on effect of increased trade for Ryedale hoteliers, publicans and other businesses.

Waterproofs are recommended for the new ride, which sails passengers in a boat past giraffes, zebras, rhino and antelope then down a steep drop into pool with an almighty splash.

Chief executive officer Gordon Gibb said: "The money that we have invested in this ride would have been enough to go for a major league roller coaster.

"Flamingo Land is already famous for its white knuckle rides like Magnum Force and The Bullet, so we wanted to invest in an attraction which families can enjoy together.

"This is custom designed and is a positive way of displaying the animals in surroundings that are more in tune with their natural habitats."

Mr Gibb said that people's perception of the best way to keep animals - in large, open spaces rather than cages, where they are as free as possible - was not always the best in terms of visitors being able to see them.

But the new attraction, which meanders through the Lost Kingdom Reserve, floats people past the animals so they can spot them easily.

Melanie Wood, director and Mr Gibb's sister, said: "The best thing is that it's a good family ride. As long as children are a metre tall or more they can go on it, so that includes most five and six-year-olds, which will mean the whole family group can stay together."

Updated: 11:48 Saturday, April 17, 2004