Sometimes I think I'm still on the Ghost Train

I literally never had the stomach for the big thrill rides at the amusement park. The parks weren't exactly large in my part of the world - Disneyland might as well have been on the moon - but when I did get to the few amusement parks in my area, I went for the more sedate pursuits.

I've been to some big parks since, and even braved a few of the roller-coasters on Australia's Gold Coast, but those days are certainly behind me now - I went on a simple roundabout thing at a playground a few months ago, and felt horrendously sick after less than 30 seconds, 

But no matter how fast or high they go, none of them could be as incredibly thrilling as the old ghost train down at the Caroline Bay Carnival in the early 1980s.

The Carnival has always been a big thing in my home town - I'm Tiny Tots champion for 1980-81, and still have the blue sash - and it had some thrills like the Sizzler, and the Tornado, and the Octopus, but I was more of a Chair-O-Plane and Big Wheel person, or out on the bumper boats.

And if I had the guts, I went in the ghost train.

Looking back, it was a tiny thing, rumbling through the back of a truck trailer, rattling around in less than a minute. Mostly it was full of skeletons and spiders and mannequins screeching at the train as it went past, and sometimes they went the whole hog and had one of the carnies waiting in the gloom to leap out as you went past. It could get genuinely creepy.

It was the most amazing ride in the world to a young me, full of surprise and threat and unease and I just wanted to go round and round again.

I don't need the tugs of gravity or velocity to get my blood pumping down the carnival, I just needed to squeeze onto the smallest train in the world, and go into the dark of the ghost train.