The Enchanting Existential Dread of Aussie Theme Parks: Chapter Six - History Comes Alive

Postcard from Old Sydney Town, in its prime.

Old Sydney Town is one of those relics of school excursions which isn’t easy to forget, it was a massive part of a lot of our childhoods, and along with Bathurst Goldfields this place was on the list of rites of passage like Wonderland Sydney which all children of the nineties went through. It was a peculiar blend of theme park and living museum, sort of like Synecdoche New York meets The Proposition - and for the most part it was successful for many decades until it wasn’t. It was created by a bunch of uni students for their grad thesis, along with government endorsements from Prime Minister Gough Whitlam back in the late seventies. I quite enjoyed Old Sydney Town for what it was when I went around nineteen-ninety-seven-or-eight, although I was quite spooked by the time tunnel which simulated the long convict voyage to Australia. Something about the sobbing mannequin who didn’t want to be here alarmed me, and the dreary tone of the tunnel wasn’t really replicated in the park itself. I recall being taught how to write old fashioned S’s with a slate of chalkboard at Old Sydney Town, as well as the spectacle of convicts being whipped, the procession of redcoat soldiers keeping law and order on the colonial streets under control. It was sometimes rather violent considering the target demographic was schoolchildren here to learn about Australia’s penal colony past, with criminals getting shot for stealing shingles by police on sight. An early lesson in ACAB I guess. All manner of old timey living exhibits existed such as the candlemaker and the blacksmith, showing how valuable goods were manufactured in the settler colonies, although other living museums like Ballarat Goldfields let you pan for gold in the creek and that was fun. Yeah, that’s the thing about Old Sydney Town, it was competing against both Wonderland Sydney and other living museums at the same time, and somehow it prospered on its own terms until the game changed all of a sudden in 2003. I wasn’t quite sure why Old Sydney Town closed until I was an adult with a more cynical eye toward theme parks once every theme park south of Queensland was calling it quits. What happened to it? How did such an iconic fixture deteriorate into a fading memory for schoolchildren of a certain age, in tandem with plenty of other theme parks who were also struggling? Well, it focused on a very specific umbrella of history, if foreigners (especially yanks) know anything about Australia besides A DINGO ATE MY BABY, they know we used to be a penal colony - a fact reinforced by the backstory of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street where Benjamin Barker got transported to Australia. To white people of a certain age, having convict ancestry was a proud part of their ethnic identity, and speaking of musicals - learning that a lot of us are descendants of Bill Sykes from Oliver! is a common experience for Aussies. My uncle did one of those Ancestry dot com tests and discovered my mother’s side of the family is descended from some prostitute who went down with the whole ship and after giving birth to a trick-baby, was hanged on Australia’s fatal shore for her wanton sluttery. This of course is a bit much for the intended family and primary schooler audience, so Old Sydney Town’s sharper teeth mainly stuck to the Terry Deary Horrible Histories type of facts about our illustrious past. Australia doesn’t have a violent revolution defining its identity besides the Eureka Stockade rebellion over mining licenses (other living museums existed besides Old Sydney Town to teach the kiddies about that), and for the most part it makes sense to theme park-ify the early convict settlers period as an easy starting point to construct a theme park around. The opportunity to populate a park with interesting characters from convict times is a rich and fertile foundation for entertaining families, even though no Aboriginal face characters were included among the cast. Old Sydney Town did have signage acknowledging Aborigines’ role in early settlement, but they weren’t really represented in the park proper with tangible presence. It’s one thing Old Sydney Town really dropped the ball on, missing the opportunity to cast an Aboriginal person as a tracker as was common employment for indigenous people at the time. One factoid which may interest you is that Old Sydney Town was used to represent colonial Angel Grove in a three part episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers back in 1994/1995, and the site has also been used in countless film productions since even if the theme park is no longer operating now.

Ask The Leyland Brothers always provided a helpful map of their locations.

The gloomy entrance to Old Sydney Town, featured in Ask The Leyland Brothers.

Old Sydney Town with its cottages and stagecoach caravans.

Thatched cottages were constructed with building materials of the time.

A vendor of lucky horseshoes wanders the streets of Old Sydney Town.

The candlemaker demonstrates her process for the park guests.

Redcoats arresting a troublemaker at Old Sydney Town.

Redcoats on the march at Old Sydney Town, with police wagon.

A neer-do-well, shot by the redcoats for stealing shingles.

A kangaroo court hearing at Old Sydney Town, complete with wigs.

The audience, full of perplexed children, watch on at the courtroom drama.

The accused pleads their case in front of the court in the stand.

A prisoner is flogged in front of hundreds of spectators, just like the olden days.

Each of the buildings house a type of character who works at the park.

The tin-smith makes wares that are then sold to tourists at Old Sydney Town.

Street musicians encourage dancing among the guests.

A grandmother takes a snapshot of the action with her camera.

All aboard the shipyard, carrying supplies from Britain to the isolated colonies.

Somebody pick-sawing large pieces of wood for the entertainment of guests.

The underdog, pulling the downward stroke of the pick-saw.

A replica of an observatory at Old Sydney Town.

Inside the Old Sydney Town observatory, with interaction from guests.

A quadrant, used for taking star altitude readings at Old Sydney Town.

The roof of the observatory rotates with cannonball-bearings to stargaze.

The cemetery of Old Sydney Town, a grim reminder of death in the colonies.

More street musicians playing a tune, above panels courtesy of Viewlorium.

Old Sydney Town was a different beast to most Australian theme parks of the time, without any thrill rides to attract people like Wonderland Sydney or Sega World had. It was unique and for the most part didn’t have to rely on cheap gimmicks to get people through the gates, it was history coming alive and that was all you needed. Of course, once you’d experienced it, there was little incentive to come back to the park. Ask The Leyland Brothers recorded crucial footage of the park in its peak operation, with soldiers and convicts galore interacting with the environment. I think Ask The Leyland Brothers did a fantastic job selling both the educational focus of the park they were promoting with their footage and the family fun angle the park was known for. They weren’t shy about demonstrating the darker side of the park for kids, nor did they sanitise the violence of colonial Australia for the viewers at home. Old Sydney Town for all its glorious family entertainment and attention to historical detail closed in 2003, with significant financial losses of $600,000 a year during the first five years of its debut according to PocketOz Pocket Guide to Sydney, before a Labor government’s attempt to inject some cash into the doomed errand was thwarted by the Liberals in 1975. Warwick Amusements weren’t able to rescue the place either, their 1987 bid came too little too late. The entire enterprise seemed like an insatiable money pit, park management also blamed “the instant gratification generation” for not appreciating a quiet stroll through Australian history’s unflattering pages - which might be one of the first instances of blaming millennials for killing an industry recorded down under. History in the making indeed! There’s a quote about Old Sydney Town from author of The Fatal Shore and art critic Robert Hughes that I found on Wikipedia originating from a documentary Hughes was in called Australia: Beyond the Fatal Shore (2000); where he said Old Sydney Town was “the only theme park in the world devoted to punishment and repression”. I’m pretty sure those Buddhist hell parks in Asia would beg to differ but Hughes has a point. It’s pretty fucked up that colonial history was being turned into an aspiring funfair with some really harsh edges I doubt helped the theme park’s case.

If this comment posted underneath the Reviewtyme YouTube video is true, I feel worried about the impact Old Sydney Town had on bodies of its grunt workers who got frequent whippings.

All the mock hangings and duels over disrespecting each other’s wives were brought to a halt as the park ceased operation, which is a shame because Old Sydney Town offered something no other Australian theme park at the time could. Promises by the management were made for an eighteen hole golf course, an amusement park with planned ghost train according to one rumour weren’t kept, and in 2014 the Heritage Hall complete with artefacts was destroyed by fire. Many plans for redeveloping the site are underway, with rezoning of the abandoned site still happening as late as 2019. The future of Old Sydney Town is perhaps even more uncertain than that of the proposed Wonderland Sydney revival, and the abandoned theme park rots away in disrepair with urban explorers and drone footage galore of its deterioration. Old Sydney Town lives now only in our memories, as other living museums in Ballarat continue its legacy as a component of the fragile Australian theme park ecosystem. It was too niche to live, too rare to die.