The following day my youngest's friend came over for a day out with our family as we went to visit 'Spookers' which is a Horror themed park out in rural Auckland, Karaka. This was a neat 'shout' by our middle child.
It's set at a place which was formerly known as Kingseat Hospital which was an institute that was established around the 1930s for treating the 'mentally ill'. It has had a checkered past with many changes to it's original use and purpose but there were also complaints that surfaced post 2000 (year), as to the abuse of patients during a national inquiry of such facilities.
Institutes such as these, were notorious in NZ, during the 1960s - 1970s and earlier in being unchecked for the ways that they treated patients and the experimental and non-ethical ways that certain so-called "professionals" worked. So that in 1999, it was closed and other recommendations were considered for the park like setting.
Yesterday, our family of 5 plus a friend arrived during a rainy period and snaked our way through the maze of roads until we got to the main office. There we were introduced to our tour guide for a behind the scenes tour R8+ (restricted to persons over the age of 8 years old).
It was a tour like no other with our guide screaming around as we went up the stairs and followed our tour guide through a maze of rooms with horror themes. I'm actually not a fan of horror as much as some of my family members are in the adrenalin rush that they get but it was an interesting tour.
I must say that even for 8 years old's, it's not a tour for faint hearted adults especially if you are easily spooked or if you have a heart condition. The horror themed rooms with scary looking clowns, missing appendages on so-called operated corpses and porcelain dolls missing heads, ghosts etc. were certainly interesting to view.
Probably the highlight for me was walking through "Disturbia" house with 3D glasses and seeing the artwork 'pop-out' with it's fluro colours. The other was walking along a bridge within a steel round casing spinning around with flying colours that made me think that I was going to fall. Very interesting!
All in all, our family enjoyed the spooking (if that's what you can call it) and then headed for our local Denny's for dinner and dessert. This was a neat 'shout' by our eldest. It was quite comforting and a stark contrast from where we had previously been.
Almost forgot to mention, that the younger two of our family group opted for a $5 makeup makeover (before leaving 'Spookers') and went to the Restaurant with blood cuts (special effects makeup) that our tour guide had painted on their faces.
Needless to say that there were a lot of quizzical looks when they saw our two but then understood once they saw that it was only makeup. Probably with the understanding that Halloween is just around the corner...
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