Left Behind

The town of Dadizele had quite a street festival when we showed up; road detours threw us for a loop but we managed to find the amusement park easily as it was in the center of town. Throngs of people milled around the way inside, but no one really seemed to take notice of our disappearance into the overgrown park. We avoided a few areas that were easily visible from the street, but in the end I felt like we got to see most of the place.

Bright colors dotted the greenery as the once landscaped surroundings engulfed the rides. A lake contained submerged one-person boats, and odd slides and rope towers poked out into the gray skies. The tallest of the rides offered some great views of the park, and sliding back down to the bottom was fun of course! The most wild thing about this site was the live ostriches that were left behind. They lived in a large overgrown pen, and someone had obviously been giving them some kind of care. I saw two - one looked sick, and stayed low to the ground in its hole, while the other sat alert in the bushes.

As we were about to leave, we noticed a carousel underneath a tarp, and it really ended the trip wonderfully. If exploring an abandoned place makes you feel like a kid again, then an abandoned amusement park really takes the cake!