We Three Kings Blog: Clacton Airshow 2013

Monday 2 September 2013

Clacton Airshow 2013

Having spent 2 weeks catching up on blog updates from Zante, I am now a little behind on other recent events. So now I am playing catch-up again. So the first catch up is from Friday week ago when I took a day off of work to take the two boys to Clacton Airshow. We have never been to Clacton Airshow before but decided to go this year as we heard the Vulcan bomber was flying. Having taken the boys to the static Vulcan open day at Southend in April, this was a fantastic opportunity to show them this spectacular plane flying and for all we know it could be the first and last time they get to see a Vulcan fly.

We knew the traffic into Clacton was going to be bad and so we decided to pay for the park and ride service. It worked fine getting into Clacton, but coming home we had probably a 30-45 wait in a queue whilst the buses shuttled thousands of people backwards and forwards. Anyway once we got into Clacton we decided to head for the pier and was amazed at how much it had changed. The boys were immediately drawn to the fairground rides so we quickly decided to get them some wrist bands so that they could make the most of the day by going on rides in between planes.

Little B on a junior size bumper car.

Joshua ready to go to battle against his little Bro.

And they are off, side by side action.

A pair of easy riders.

Over the hill (no I am not talking about me!).

It is lovely to see the two boys riding on some of the bigger rides together without having a parent accompany them (not that Tina could go on any rides what with being 6 months pregnant). The two of them loved the Goldmine Runaway Train ride.

Joshua and Brandon on the front of the Goldmine.

They had this coaster all to themselves.

F1 drivers in the making.

I seem to recall Clacton Pier having a large Scalextric track but we couldn't find it anywhere. The nearest thing we could find was a kids ride which was called Scalextric and featured loads of ride on vehicles that went around a looping/rising track.

Of course Brandon was going to pick a fast looking car to ride on.

And up the track he goes.....

Joshua opted for a quad bike which he is still fanatic about from our recent holiday to Greece.

And up goes Joshua.

There are still a few rides which Joshua can go on and Brandon is not quite tall enough. Surprisingly though Joshua can go on a lot of what I call the big rides without an adult accompanying him anymore. So I let him go on the Twister a few times on his own and he loved it. However I had to join him on the Waltzer as my extra body weight meant we were spinning pretty rapidly.

Joshua waiting for the Twister to get going,

Brandon on a little "Big Wheel" whilst Joshua rides the Twister.

The flying dumbos.

Another roller coaster - Mexican themed.

Every now and then I did managed to drag the boys away from the rides in order to watch some planes. After all this was supposed to be an airshow! In particular I made sure that they watched all of the Vulcan flight and the red arrows. The Vulcan was just incredible and the boys were fascinated by the noise as it flew overhead.

Could this be the first and last time the boys ever see a Vulcan flying.

Brandon's best bit of the day was the Red Arrows. Not sure he has ever seen these before and he loved watching the red, white and blue smoke, the formations and also seeing just how close they flew to each other.