Fun World on Durban’s beachfront can best be described as mechano-porn.
The arms of rides such as the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Explorer appear to swivel around hubs remarkably similar to gargantuan French-tickler condoms festering with Eighties disco-light.
Teenage girls — faces set in a disconcerting mixture of fear and orgasm — cling on to high-velocity rides for dear life, their piercing shrieks reminiscent of Beatlemania or a Jacob Zuma court appearance.
Even the rides for children are not spared. As a train of replica vintage cars moves along the Fantasy Ride landscape it passes a six-piece animal rock band with a bear lasciviously poised to mount his piano.
While the swirling, dilated pupils and positioning of said Grizzly suggests a Viagra-LSD cocktail, his vulture band members appear to be doing a damn fine “Bird” impersonation — imagine alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker post-electro-shock therapy, but in the middle of yet another heroin binge.
Not that the kids are concerned or affected. Every little one had to be dragged off the two-lap ride blubbering.
Three-year-old Mvelo, the nephew of Spliff, the pet goldfish, couldn’t get enough of what seems, to the adult eye, a rather pedestrian ride — returning four times with a gurgling giggle and shining eyes, his fascination with imoto (motorcar) growing with each turn.
The slower-paced novelties, such as the Fantasy Ride, Dragon and Santa Fe Railway, which chugs slowly past a Wild West landscape replete with a Mexican deep in siesta, entertain children up to about nine or 10 years old.
Teens prefer the bewildering pace, and sometimes irregular movements, of rides like the Break-dance (open-air cabins rotating around a central hub at speed and with jagged movements), Tornado (a swirling iron cage) and the Hully Gully (a flat circle of seats that moves like an epileptic space-ship).
It is here that adults can reclaim their forgotten childhood. For a few minutes your future is not your own, but rather dictated by a mechanical Svengali.
The power and speed of the rides is visceral. Inhibitions loosen and screaming like a frenzied dervish is completely acceptable — cathartic, even.
Most Durbanites have nostalgic memories of rides at Fun World, and its owner, Nic Steyn, is no different: “I was brought up here,” he says.
“My dad used to work here 365 days a year — unless he was traveling in other countries to get ideas for rides — and the only way to spend time with him was to go to work with him, which is a pretty nice way to spend your childhood,” he says, laughing
Fun World, according to Steyn, has been in the family for three generations. It started in the 1950s as a “little train operation” run by his grandfather, Arthur Thornton, near the Mini-Town further north along Durban’s Golden Mile.
“My dad bought the train ride in the Seventies and we moved down here [near Dairy Beach] after the municipality asked us to,” he says.
According to Steyn, his engineer father, also Nic, started designing and making the rides as he extended the fun park. To this day all the rides are made in Durban.
“Its much cheaper than importing. For example, the Tilt-a-Whirl would cost about R3-million to import from Germany, and that’s not even taking into account costs for shipping, transportation and installation,” he says.
According to Steyn, the park’s lease is up in eight years, so no major extensions have been planned until it has been signed.
The House of Terror ride, though, is under construction, so, disappointingly, I was unable to gauge whether the original House of Horrors I remembered from my childhood was still as scary or merely a motley collection of screaming masks and bad zombies in fake blood.
The dodgem car arena, though, appears unchanged: the malicious fat kid hunting the smaller ones with evil intent in his eye is still there. So too the sniggering smart-asses who expertly reverse crash into you while you’re still trying to remember how the bloody thing works.
The park employs about 70 people and Steyn says maintenance is conducted on an “ongoing basis”.
“We do engineering tests on all the rides every year, but our maintenance is ongoing because there is always a possibility that something may go wrong,” says Steyn. He says accidents are “very seldom”, with the last more than a decade ago.
Accidental adult tourists with an aversion for velocity will be gladdened to hear that there are more sedate rides at the park.
The cable car over the beachfront provides a stunning view of the Indian Ocean, Hare Krishna devotees rocking the promenade and the nearby splash pools (safe, high above the sharp smell of chlorine) where, in the summer, hundreds appear to thrash about like a herd of wildebeest being devoured by predators.
In the summertime Durban’s beachfront buzzes like a swarm of mosquitoes. And Fun World — attracting as many as 35Â 000 “bums-on-seats” last New Year’s day — appears one of its juiciest pieces of flesh.
Fun World is at 10585 OR Tambo Parade (formerly Marine Parade). Peak season hours: 9am to past midnight. Tel: 031 332 9776. Fun World rates: Children’s rides: R7. Teen rides: R8. Day pass (for unlimited access to all rides except the dodgem cars): R50. Dodgem cars: R9 a ride