Theme parks: they’re all quite similar, and too many of them in Australia feature shitty Australian animal petting zoos to coax over tourists who have flown over from Asian countries to exclusively visit Uluru and anything that involves koalas. If overpriced slurpees and hot-dogs (to please the Americans) accompanied by a slightly nagging sense of loss from the overpriced entry fee isn’t enough, then your kids’ motion sickness as you wearily retreat back to your hotel room may very well do you in for good. Thus, I present the Rollicking Theme Park Tour o’ Australia, of theme parks past and present for you, the discerning tourist.
Fox Studios Backlot, Sydney
The Fox Studios Backlot is notable for being completely closed down due to poor ticket sales only two years after its over-extravagant opening. Peer eagerly through the black wire fencing at beleaguered tradesmen extending the movie studios into what was formerly a complete piece of shite excuse for a theme park, and listen for the ex-workers’ anthemic ‘You Can’t Close the Backlot’ (to the tune of ‘You Can’t Stop the Music’) as they continue to demand their final entitlements from Rupert Murdoch. You needn’t worry on missing out on anything of worth – the biggest attraction was ‘Titanic: The Experience’ which was easily recreated by sitting in a cardboard box, having someone push you around a bit, set alight then hastily extinguished with a sprinkler hose on a mist setting. At least they didn’t attempt to get away with calling any of their attractions rides – they were all merely “experiences”. Experiences you’d learn from, too: with other attractions such as ‘The Home and Away Diner: The Experience’ you were left wondering if you were entitled to grab something from ‘The Simpsons Store: The Experience’ for free. Why’d it fail? There was no Australian animal petting zoo.
Wobbie’s World, Melbourne
Also sadly closed, Wobbie’s World was part of the classic eighties set of pisspoor theme parks which very near verged on playgrounds. Located in the midst of Melbourne suburbia and thus confined to near-silent amusements, most Victorians will recall the Wobbie’s World advertisements on television informing viewers that there’s ‘lots to do at Wobbie’s World’. No fun or amusement involved – just good ol’ fashioned knuckling down and doing stuff. After navigating your way through a polystyrene castle which doubled as a ticket booth, you were then subjected to such oversized playground regulars as the ‘Crazy Copters’ – a roller coaster shaped as a helicopter without any dips or acceleration above a cautious five kilometres per hour, and some crappy fire engines on tracks, which gallantly sped – also at a terrifying five kilometres per hour – through a puddle of water hosed into a concrete dip. There were also playground slides. Lots of slides. Yet the park closed in the early nineties and is now merely a mass of broken concrete and weeds. Why’d it fail? Again, no Australian petting zoo – although tourists were unlikely to be wooed away from the sightseeing meccas of Sydney and Queensland for the sake of circumnavigating a tossy little renovated caravan park in a Crazy Copter.
Leisure Land, some backwater in country Victoria
Hey, why not eliminate all the casualties before we get into the real meaty theme parks. Leisure Land was the lesser-known country cousin of Wobbie’s World but was equally as shite. Having closed in the late eighties, my only visit was during my early childhood but even at such an innocent age I was struck back in awe by the overall shittiness of the place. Entering the theme park was buy way of a loud and pointless novelty train ride which involved pincering your buttocks into minuscule ‘carriages’, as the ‘jolly’ driver lead you into Leisure Land. There was one roller coaster, but it was that Mad Mouse thing you see at every second fucking funfair around the country. There was little further of worth to be found – hell, they classified their convention room as a major attraction. Once again, probably failed because there was no petting zoo.
Leyland Brothers Adventure Park, somewhere in New South Wales
Before the Crocodile Hunter, we had the immensely weaker and father-figure type adventurers the Leyland Brothers, and their weekly nature documentaries. Onward ho through their terrifying adventure park, which involved sitting in 4-wheel drives which traversed through steep hills and deep puddles. Just you like your own little Leyland Brothers adventure – until they were done in for insolvently trading or something, I think. Isn’t one of the Leyland guys dead anyway? Ehhh. One of the side attractions, The Big Lobster (hey, we love big inanimate objects as tourist attractions here) remains open as a suspect cafe. Despite the nature theme, this too failed due to lack of a petting zoo.
Magic Mountain, Merimbula
Magic Mountain may very well still be open – I’m not completely sure. Visited it once on a childhood holiday – the only major attractions were two waterslides – each one doubtlessly containing a young Merimbula local who, having slid down the slide far too many times, was resorting to stopping halfway down the slide and causing children behind them to collide for entertainment. Oh, there was a toboggan slide as well, but I have bad memories of that: being so young and terrified of the speed of the contraption I was riding in, I slowed down to something near caravan park speed limits and was subsequently stacked into by an angry teenager halfway down. No petting zoo here either.
Gumbya Park, Melbourne
Carbon copy of the above, except with a shitload of animals and lots more minigolf and barbeque facilities. Frequent advertising during the mid-nineties with intensely annoying theme song. Features enormous peacock-style construction outside front of park.
The Show, all over Australia
No matter how small your Aussie town, they’ll always have an annual Show – our version of the dodgy Fun Fair. A bizarre meeting of farmyard animals, woodchopping contests and eating yourself silly on battered heart attacks so you throw up on gravity-challenging rides, every kid splurges incredulous amounts of pocket money on various wastes at this annual event. Be it playing rigged side-show games for crappy plush toys, or purchasing showbags with toys that’ll break before the day is out, nothing quite matches the Show for bizarreness and rides which look like they’ll break down at any given moment. It also marks the annual consumption of a battered sav for every Australian in the country. For added challenges, visit the Sydney Show: you can’t move more than five metres per minute. Why has this institution continued on for so many years? It’s got goddamn animals everywhere, along with creepy ferret contests and the like.
The Big Pineapple, Sunshine Coast
Continuing the theme of Big Attractions, nearly every Australian has navigated their way through Australia’s most famous piece of hollow polystyrene. Peer disappointedly over the rim of the pineapple at your frantically waving partner with a camera and sigh discontentedly as you realise every weak attraction at the Big Pineapple costs an arm and a leg. When we visited, all my parents shelled out for was some sort of bizarre automated boat ride through a giant shed about the history of peanuts. I think. The most exciting part was when an animatronics peanut told us the ride had ended. Make sure you’re not allergic to citrus or traces of nuts. Forget the lack of a fucking petting zoo, the main attraction alone should be enough to warn you away.
Wonderland, Sydney
Enough of these trifling try-hard theme parks, though: let’s get into the meaty boys. Wonderland is Sydney’s major theme park, located in the ‘quaint’, yet questionable low socioeconomical structure on the outskirts of Sydney known as Penrith. Many confused tourists often circle the main shopping area of Penrith in the belief that the locals are actually character actors before they notice there’s no rollercoasters roaring around overhead. Wonderland does get points for attempting to break up itself into separate ‘worlds’, but these equate to little more than areas of ten square metres each. They even give a picnic area its own world, for crying out loud. Notable attractions include the ‘southern hemisphere’s largest wooden rollercoaster’ – one ride and you’ll realise why they don’t make ‘em out of wood anymore (are they insured?) and Space Probe – not an intrusive medical procedure, but it sure feels like one when you ride it and plummet towards the ground at high speed, before wondering why you lined up forty-five minutes with a leaky ice-cream to experience a ride that lasts all of ten seconds. Features mandatory ‘kiddy’ world, although they could only afford the Hanna-Barbera license, so it’s all a bit shit. They also bought the rollercoaster that goes backwards from Brisbane’s World Expo 1988. Cheapskates – although they get major bonus points for featuring a petting zoo nearly half the size of the park that exclusively features Australian animals. Oh, and someone nearly got killed on the now closed-down ‘Ned Kelly’s Getaway’ attraction a couple of years ago, so at least they’re trying for some element of excitement.
Wet and Wild, Gold Coast
Wet and Wild is a relatively new water park, smack bang next to Warner Bros Movie World. To be quite honest it’s not a bad day out – the entry fee is pretty cheap and the complex waterslide arrangements are a lot of fun. Make sure you don’t go on the black waterslide that angles downwards at a stark 45 degrees from a ten-storey-high tower with a minimalistic bathing costume, is all I can say. You don’t skid through the water at the end, you simply come to a rude stop by aid of a rubbergripped surface. Features wave pool for mandatory vomit-inducing theme park experience. No petting zoo – would’ve been nice to see the challenge of Australian animals coping in a faux-Hawaiian atmosphere riddled with chlorine.
Universal Studios, Melbourne
The theme park that never was. Originally supposed to be built in the city’s new downtown Docklands precinct, the project was abandoned for reasons unknown. Probably because they realised no tourists visit Melbourne ever (unless they’re interested in art – so they’re hardly likely to visit a raucous blockbuster movie-themed complex). I was actually on the consumer focus panel that Universal Studios used to gauge how well the theme park would do (serious!). It wouldn’t have been that bad a theme park – they were planning a massive ferris wheel which would’ve risen above the city and become a new landmark, as well as a lot of decent rides. Still, it was not to be. I liked the fact that they used an ultra-boring theme park which centered around educating people about electricity as the ‘control’ theme park on our testing panel.
The Gold Coast Trifecta: Sea World, Dreamworld and Movie World
These are the theme parks every Aussie thinks of when the term ‘overpriced day of sunburn’ is uttered. Naturally, they’re all located in Queensland’s Gold Coast, home of the theme park (and penis enlargement for international tourists).
Sea World to this day disturbs me for serving fish and chips whilst patrons observe a dolphin stunt show. I simply can’t get over this. There really isn’t a lot to hold your attention here if you’re not into animals (or jetski stunt shows) – however, you may find some entertainment from plopping icecreams into the baby seal pools as you pass overhead in the chairlift. Major attraction last time I visited was the mysterious ‘Bermuda Triangle’ attraction – ride a boat through murky caves chock-full of outdated special effects as all the four-year-old children in the boat scream in terror.
Dreamworld – or, as it now demands to be known, ‘The Home Of Big Brother’ is a stalwart of the theme park scene. Anyone who steps foot on that rickety old Thunderbolt rollercoaster deserves a freakin’ medal. Also features the ‘Wipeout’, a ride which serves no other purpose other than to fling tourists around above a giant pool of water, then charge them at the end of the day to retrieve the coins, watches and wallets which inevitably are flung from the riders. You can also suffer the Tower of Terror, which recently tacked on a ride similar to Wonderland’s ‘Space Probe’ on the other side of the Tower in another move of cheapskatedom. Oh, you can visit the Big Brother house or watch an eviction show live, but really… nobody visited Dreamworld before Big Brother came along except fucking tourists visiting the park’s Koala Country area. They charge $20 for a photo with a koala! If that’s not cashflow ingenuity after flogging people of a $50 entrance fee, I have no idea what is.
Then there’s Movie World – the theme park which leaves you wondering why it looked so big in the advertisements after you leave. The tired old exhibits such as Gremlins The Ride (ride through a very short animatronics-aided Gremlins take-over-the-film-studio scene… passe) and Batman The Ride (I’ve seen more convincing simulations on my Playstation) are accompanied by yawnfests such as a bumbling trip through some dated movie studios which involve a tour member HILARIOUSLY! cast into a Top Gun or Superman scene. This has been accomplished by approximately every citizen of Australia. Twice. There are slightly more modern rides like the Lethal Weapon inverted rollercoaster and the Wild West Get A Bit Wet ride, but you’d better get used to them – and like them – because they’re the only attractions of worth and you’ll force yourself to ride them five times each to generate a sense of value for money. Oh, and the revered Police Academy Stunt Show, which strikes me down with its sheer hilarity every time.
In summary, you can do a much better deal if you’re on holidays and in search of a good time. For the price of a major theme park entry ticket, an overpriced lunch and $30 black-and-white photograph of your slightly stunned face as you tumble down the incline of a rollercoaster; you can hire a hooker for the same level of enjoyment in the comfort of your own hotel room. You’ll even experience the rollercoaster-style stomach lurches of terror as you discover the first inklings of public lice on your body one week later.