Jawa Timur Park 2 opened at the back of 2011 and is predominantly a zoo with some rides. This park had been researched prior to the trip starting and with us believing it had no rollercoasters we'd not included it in our must-do's instead planning on visiting it only if we had the time. As it turns out with the mouse coaster reportedly being here we had to include it.
The entrance is impressive with a mid-sized wheel and nice roman style building.
However above the entrance was this very bizarre construction, which we found out was a hotel. Cool!
Behind the wheel we found this collection of coaster parts, so the park is clearly getting more than just the rumoured wooden mouse. The colour of the track told us that this was the Loop & Cork coaster previously at Maruyama Kidland in Hokkaido.
Now as we approached the park we were told that it had closed for the day. It was only 1715 and despite what we'd been told at BNS the park was closing at 1800. They were refusing to let more people in because they wouldn't have time to enjoy all of the park. We did our best to persuade the park that we were only interested in riding the rollercoaster and would run in, ride it, and run back out, but they weren't having any of it. Clearly the idea of spending money to just do one one ride was completely alien to them. So I tried a different tact in asking them if we could take photos of the ride, and the security guard was alright with this, and even better he opened the gate without us buying any tickets. So we'd gotten in for free, we just had to find the coaster. Being the youngest in the group and having legs that worked I ran on ahead and scouted for the ride.
The nicely done tiger enclosure.
Actually the whole park looked really good.
and at the back corner of the park was the coaster. In fact I spotted it halfway up the hill much to the awe of the others in the group. Even better I'd spotted a second coaster in the park. So we'd found the coaster and even better it was still running.
Renamed to Animal Coaster and having been given a fresh lick of paint we were given the OK by the operators to ride it. Clearly with it being the end of the day no checks were being made on the wristbands we hadn't bought.
So we had a few goes on the coaster and it was running extremely well with wonderful airtime and no rough spots at all! The nicely padded cars may have had something to do with that. Having got this credit the group were on a high and much smiling and fun was had. It's funny how the adrenalin kicks in when you're not sure you're going to get to ride a coaster you've travelled all the way around the world to ride. There aren't many wooden coasters in the world but this one was a great one! It's rumoured to have resided in Melbourne before coming to Indonesia.
The second coaster that I'd spotted on the way up to the wooden coaster was this one. Called Shark Coaster, it looked to be brand new and was another previously unlisted credit. Yay!
Bonkers rabbit is bonkers!
We still had time left before proper kick out so we went back to the mouse coaster and rode it some more. Last rides of the day went to the ride ops who rode it in a slightly different manner to how we did. Backwards would have been interesting!
Opposite the mouse is this wonderful old waltzer attraction.
With light starting to drop, photos became harder but that's a huge King Kong construction that's just theming, much like the elephant outside.
Random Nintendo Collection. The Batu Secret Zoo is the alternative name for Jawa Timur Park 2.
and finally leaving the park and checking out the nice lighting display on the building.
Given the circumstances, this park became one of the highlights of the trip, and still something that makes me smile when I think back to finding this and the "just in time" challenge we had in getting here. I'm glad I'd included some flex in our schedules as I doubt we'd have been able to make this otherwise.
For those travelling to Batu, again you need to get here via car and driver. Fortunately the 3 parks are all in close proximity and we were able to do these with Taman Safari 2 in one day immediately from leaving the airport. We'd chosen to leave our luggage in Singapore and travel light through Indonesia meaning we could head to the parks straight from the airport without the worry of having to drop things off at the hotel. Drive time from the Safari Park is approximately 90 minutes and if going straight from Surabaya give yourselves 3 hours. Obviously with BNS no longer having coasters you could drop that place but it's still worth checking out and as it opens late should be the last park of the itinerary. You can sleep on the drive back to Surabaya!
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