The Enchanting Existential Dread of Aussie Theme Parks: Chapter Four - Wouldn’t It Be Wonderful
Wouldn’t it be wonderful, for every boy, girl, woman and man?
Wonderland Sydney was my favourite park in Sydney, hands down, I only visited twice but I enjoyed every minute I spent there. Compared to the abrasive indoor Sega World Sydney, Wonderland Sydney was more akin to my type of park I want to spend my time in. It was outdoors, it was charming, and there was a plethora of things to see and do and plenty of rides which I could’ve listed as my favourites. Wonderland Sydney is sorely missed, perhaps the greatest theme park Sydney ever had south of Queensland, and the sad story of its decline continues to dismay my generation whenever it is mentioned. It was the closest thing we had to Disneyland growing up, and losing it left a gaping wound in New South Wales which may never truly heal. I loved Wonderland despite my brief, beautiful interaction with what it had to offer, I remember the gift shop with Johnny Bravo and The Powerpuff Girls plushies that I couldn’t afford, they had a lot of Hanna-Barbera merch on sale in fact, befitting the themed land those characters got to themselves. I remember waking up early to watch The Powerpuff Girls on Agro’s Cartoon Connection, rumour has it there was a stage show with them at Wonderland Sydney that I never saw. Chances are it would’ve been as cheesy as Sonic Live In Sydney but I could be wrong.
The Hanna-Barbera gang’s all here at Wonderland Sydney.
Wonderland Sydney was a complex creature as Australian theme parks go, it had an area called The Beach which featured Fred Flintstone in his swimming gear on signage, it was attached to the Australian Wildlife Park as a bonus. My favourite rides were spread across the park, with Bounty’s Revenge in Old Botany Bay serving as an introduction to what Wonderland was all about. It was your standard swinging pirate ship ride, I boarded the beautiful antique ship and strapped in for adventure I hadn't dared explore beforehand until I arrived there. Whilst I was too chicken to ride the Demon whilst it was still operating, I was determined to reclaim my masculinity after the Sega World incident by riding two thrill ride attractions called Space Probe 7 and The Bush Beast, they were E-ticket attractions which all paths led to if you sought out adrenaline pumping action. Space Probe 7 resided near the Transylvania area with its spooky Halloween pumpkin gate, I rode Wizard’s Fury there and enjoyed being spun around by the proverbial cranky sorcerer’s rage through a house which may or may not have been supposed to be haunted. Transylvania housed most of the park’s best remembered thrill rides, with the Beastie catering to kids not yet ready to ride The Bush Beast in the Gold Rush area. I liked the Beastie a lot, and you would go through the gateway into a pre-show Scooby Doo house with a vulture sitting atop it as you boarded the mini-coaster. It wasn’t too scary nor too tame for most kids, an excellent compromise between the fiercer, more rattly attractions. Wonderland Sydney’s origins came from Paramount Kings’ Island, unbeknownst to us at the time, which is why The Bush Beast bore a strong resemblance to The Beast rollercoaster in America, I believe the Demon rollercoaster was a Wonderland Sydney original though. The park was a rite of passage akin to Old Sydney Town for holiday seekers and bored daycare children who descended upon its turnstiles with excitement that’s hard to put into words, which makes the absence of the park in our current ecosystem all the sadder because I’ll never get to drag my own children to Wonderland. You won’t find many contrarian hot-takes against this beloved institution online, and since its closure there have been articles eulogising the place all over the internet. Wonderland History seeks to preserve whatever is left of the park’s tangible remains and photographs depicting the attractions, which is what most bloggers and videographers covering Wonderland often use as a primary source. Wonderland’s among one of the most documented of all defunct Australian theme parks, with audio-visual material readily available for research purposes, which you can’t really say about many Aussie parks where few ride-through uploads exist compared to the American parks.
The rainbow gateway to Hanna-Barbera Land at Wonderland Sydney.
The notorious Demon rollercoaster, with its double loops in Transylvania.
The gate to the Demon rollercoaster in its nineties splendour.
The mighty Space Probe 7 pictured next to the Demon coaster.
The iconic Bounty’s Revenge swinging pirate ship attraction.
The loud whirr of the Wizard’s Fury ride kept us spinning.
The Bush Beast as it stood in all its wooden glory, circa 2000.
A TV special was produced for the Space Probe 7 ride, featuring the cast of Australian Gladiators braving the tall drop ride’s dizzying heights, and watching it takes me back to when I first rode it, I was around eight or eleven years old when I queued up in the Transylvania section of the park eager to prove my courage, I walked through the space tunnel with its spooky atmosphere and strapped myself into the chair. Once lifted to the drop zone, there was a ten second countdown to the launch, and the anticipation was tense for a lad like me. Drop tower rides aren’t really my thing, but having ridden one of the tallest in the world at the time put metaphorical hairs on my chest. Transylvania was the newest land addition to Wonderland Sydney at the time when I went there, and for many it was their favourite with the spooky pumpkins and eerie sound effects greeting you at its entrance. It was atmospheric and creepy for a little kid, and although I was growing into a bigger kid I admit this area fascinated my morbid curiosity. Plenty of fun was to be had at the crossroads between Hanna-Barbera Land and Transylvania, such as the Zodiac ride which I never managed to experience for myself sadly, as I must’ve preferred getting another turn on the Beastie. Fred Flintstone’s Splashdown was another fun ride which I never got the chance to try, it was a flume boat attraction based on The Flintstones characters that lots of people loved back in the day. Fred Flintstone showed up in a lot of water-based attractions like The Beach water park as well, you couldn’t get away from the guy at Wonderland. I never went on the water slides at The Beach because I didn’t bring a towel and a change of clothes both times I went to Wonderland, which is a shame because from what I saw it was a pretty rad source of waterslides almost up there with Wet N’ Wild.
The TV special based on the making of Space Probe 7’s commercial.
Cheeta and Commando greet lifestyle TV presenters at Wonderland.
The Australian Gladiators decide to ride the Demon before tackling Space Probe 7.
David Wardfear in a rare interview about the construction of Space Probe 7.
Roger Cammeron dishes on the special effects that created Space Probe 7.
Colin Timms explains the sound design aspect for the viewers at home. (Above six panels, courtesy of ellyandjools)
The pumpkin-y entrance to Transylvania, the horror themed Wonderland zone.
The Zodiac ride in Hanna-Barbera Land, long may it twirl in our memories.
Fred Flintstone’s Splashdown operating in its prime at Wonderland.
Tragedy struck when the Wonderland Sydney park was sold to Sunway Group, who in my opinion are one of the worst Australian villains of the nineties and early two-thousands up there with the Summer Bay Stalker on Home and Away, Pauline Hanson and Steve Vizard. Sunway Group murdered the dreams of millions when they purchased Wonderland and ran it into the ground - only interested in acquiring the real estate on which the park stood. They blamed various misfortunes for the closure of the park, including SARS and September 11th, 2001, but the fault for the death of poor Wonderland Sydney was blood on their hands. Like a cranky landlord turfing out their tenants, their alleged neglect of the animals in the Australian Wildlife Park section caused personnel employed by the sanctuary to break into the premises and rescue the creatures either starving or cooking in the summer heat. Losing Wonderland hurt me way more than the previous loss of Sega World Sydney did, yet the loss of both the Sega World and Wonderland Sydney parks within a five year timespan marked the end of an era for the New South Wales infrastructure around us. The optimism of the Sydney 2000 Olympics curdled into urban mediocrity and lack of imagination both in politics and our environment. Children of the nineties who are now adults miss the excitement that permeated the early two-thousands as the millennium bug bit us all, only to bring us an era of disappointment when our theme parks south of Queensland disappeared. Never again would the New South Wales parks rival the Gold Coast, and the grief inflicted by their closure would haunt my generation as suburban sprawl made resurrecting Wonderland Sydney seem like an impossibility. Occasional hope sprouts for a redevelopment of Wonderland Sydney, trumpeted by some real estate agent who used to work at Wonderland, sometimes gets printed in the media but I’m not holding out hope it’ll ever be rebuilt at half the splendour of its former incarnation. Old Sydney Town would fall around the same time, a historic theme park trapped by its niche identity, and the loss of that particular park coincided with the two titans of New South Wales parks closing down forever. Being an Australian theme park fan involves a lot of heartache, and Wonderland Sydney is one of the cruellest examples of why that is, gutted of its attractions by a corporate buyout and neglected by the new owners who refused to maintain what they had purchased. It wouldn’t be so bad if we got something neat to replace it, such as Luna Park Sydney doing the heavy lifting once Wonderland Sydney closed, but even Luna Park is a bit skint in the attractions compared to how it was in the nineties before noise complaints killed the Big Dipper. Australians had something to be proud of in our parks back then, and having it taken away all of a sudden when we weren’t done enjoying it was a harsh reality to face as children - now bitter adults bludgeoned by two separate once-in-a-lifetime recessions. The Millennials had so much hope for the twenty-first century until the war on terror snatched that away too, there was no escape for us left when the parks were shut. There’s a certain miasma to Sydney at the moment, lacking vision or inspiration, swallowed by corporate towers and grey drab vistas greeting the eyes of tourists unfortunate to have missed Sydney in its prime when the government was willing to spend lots of money beautifying Darling Harbour for the Olympic visitors. The last hope of Australian theme parks’ viability would remain at the Gold Coast for the next decade or two, and to date nothing close to Queensland has emerged besides Adventure World in Perth. To this day the signage from Wonderland sits in a junkyard rusting away in limbo like the Sega World Sonic statues before it, as a reminder of Sydney’s lost glory. Wonderland could’ve stuck around if it was managed better by owners who cared about more than how much money they could get for flogging it off. According to my friend Reena, the early two-thousands weren’t kind to poor Wonderland at all and the park was very run down compared to when I visited. Such is life, I guess, and Wonderland Sydney lives now only in my memories like I’m the Feral Kid from Mad Max 2. There’s never going to be another park like it in my lifetime, even if they do get approval to rebuild that planned pipe dream version it’s just not going to be the same. Nostalgia intermingled with ceaseless anger at the betrayal of Sunway seems to sum up the mood whenever Wonderland is discussed amongst Aussie theme park fans, and sometimes we get too sad to even talk about the park because talking about it means acknowledging it’s gone. And it’s been gone almost half of my adult life, nothing can bring it back and I can never go home again. Disney fans sometimes call Disneyland “home” but Wonderland was our home before we all got evicted by Sunway’s lust for real estate. I often get depressed and furious having to think about Wonderland’s decline because it didn’t need to happen. Greedy land developers have killed so many of our country's parks that it’s ridiculous, and it’s a recurring theme with why New South Wales couldn’t keep up with Queensland’s Gold Coast. We’ll talk about one of the more infamous suburban parks next time, peace.
Londonderry’s junkyard retains the Wonderland Sydney Marvel signage.
