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The “Ghost Train” is a great example, and pretty much every dark ride that takes you around scenery where things jump out at you harks back to the earliest of examples. Another classic indoor dark ride is the boat trip around scenery. The scenery can be many things – Toy Factories, Pirate Adventures, A fizzy pop factory… But possibly further back then you would imagine, Blackpool already had such a ride – Enter Stage Right: The River Caves.

Today, the river caves is still a staple attraction – though it has been updated and changed so many times over the years that one tends to forget much of them. It’s outdoor scenery is really pretty as the public walk up a ramped path outside of it – and look down on boats returning to the station. The water certainly ain’t crystal clear – but is a rather alarming “brilliant blue” colour. If you are wearing light clothes, ensure you don’t get splashed by it .

The queueline is a cattle grid affair with some simple moving diagrams on the walls. For example, one of the scenes shows a dinosaur where a 2D T-Rex opens it's mouth. Wait 5 seconds, and it closes. Another 5 seconds, and it opens again. Repeat until it is turned off. The ride gets itself off the hook of bad animatronics because the 2D scene is obviously not supposed to be doing anything special. The ride doesn't take itself too seriously, which is why despite having some troubles that would sink other rides into oblvion, the River Caves can keep hanging on.

As the boat sharply stops in front of us, you realise that this ain’t no modern technological wonder – the boats look distinctly dated and barely able to get around the course without sinking. The boat has several benches, none with backs so it actually means you can face any direction you choose. The operators don't give a hoot, of course. Whilst you cannot say that River Caves has a story as such, it does seem wrong that the entrance to the inside caves has a large "Tunnel of Love" illuminated sign. As it happens, this was made for filming of a Coronation Street episode - and the park left it there. I bet you have never seen boats of SIX people enter a tunnel of love... Not in this part of the world anyway. Not to worry though – as we are soon on our way and begin our tour of the caves with a trip back to prehistoric times.

Through holes in the cave walls, we see some dinosaurs rustling around the foliage. A neat trick is for the viewing gap in the cave walls to get very small at one point, whether this is to hide mechanics or just for that extra “realistic” effect, it is a plus point in favour of the ride. We then seem to pass under the water, and we endure fish and sharks swimmping by us as we bob along the sea bed, with the glorious addition of some wavy lights and blobbly music.

Not long after, we enter a very very large cave. Large enough indeed to not only allow use to wave around a large lagoon of Stalagmites, but to support the Gold Mine Train above us, and a Pie Restaurant to our left. As diners muse our arrival, and teenagers try to throw sachets of ketchup into our boat, we once again enter the caves proper.

This time we are in Egypt, and as we pass through small and claustrophobic passages, we are allowed glimpses of ancient Egyptian Tombs and Coffins. This is marvellously done, and the narrow passages between the three Egyptian rooms serve to push the adventure factor enormously. During this scene, we get our first bit of narration – some Birmingham accent sounding like it is coming to us courtesy of a radio link via Uranus.

After Egypt, we enter a lost Inca civilisation – now overgrown with forest. This is a delightful scene, with far too much detail to really take in before we start our ascent up a rickety old lift that delivers us outside. Having said that, it is quite normal for there to be a backlog of boats waiting for the station here, so you may get more time to look around then you had envisaged. We turn a corner – aided by the less then subtle tyre motors, and as we head outdoors we speed down a small drop, where some splashes of the luminous blue water stain perfectly good jackets, before we leave.

The ride is a classic in every sense of the word – the scenes are nice and detailed and with enough variation that the ride never becomes dull. It is not pretentious at all – it doesn’t care that some of the dinosaurs look less then realistic, it doesn’t care that suddenly a heavily accented recording burst into life telling you about the Egyptians on a loop shorter then 10 seconds. It doesn’t care, so we don’t.

It’s great fun – if you like classic dark rides, you will love River Caves. And if you like good dark rides… you will love it too.