There may still be over a week to go but it’s all hands to the pump at Oakwood Theme Park as staff ready the rides for the start of its 25th anniversary season on March 31st.
Earlier this month ride engineers at the award-winning Pembrokeshire theme park embarked on the mammoth task of filling the lake and reservoir of Drenched – the UK’s wettest ride.
Drenched is the tallest ride in Europe, contains an extraordinary 4.5 million litres of water, and takes six weeks to fill up.
A spokesperson said: “Our maintenance manager Matt Abel is in charge of getting Drenched ready for the new season and this year we provided him with his own hose to speed things up a little!
“Fortunately we’re not relying entirely on Matt’s efforts as there’s also a much larger water intake pipe – even so it will still take at least another week to fully fill up the lake,” he added.
Opened in 2002, Drenched is the tallest, steepest and wettest water ride in Europe. After climbing more than 30 metres into the air riders are faced with a near vertical 88 degree drop into 4.5million litres of water.
Even spectators need to be on their guard to dodge the 45 foot splash wave on the wooden viewing bridge.