Building the dream
PARKLIFE
Parklife
Australia’s Dreamworld is the result of one man’s wish back in the latter half of the 1970s to build a theme park and today it is one of the Gold Coast’s premier attractions, as Andrew Mellor discovered
WE all have dreams and for some I guess they do come true. Certainly in the case of Australian John Longhurst his dream to create a theme park did eventually come to fruition. Built in Coomera, Queensland, on Australia’s Gold coast,
the site Dreamworld now occupies once belonged to a John and Sarah Williamson, an English cattle raising family who in 1874 decided to name their house Hollywood Cottage, putting the name on a hardwood beam which was then placed above their front door. Their original cottage still stands intact on Dreamworld grounds, as part of Gold Rush Country, where the descendants of the Williamson’s stayed on until 1989. Ninety-five years later John Longhurst, on a flight
between Hawaii and Japan, envisioned what would later become Dreamworld. He was a man from a simple background, having begun his working life as a truck operator and mechanic, later becoming a successful lawn mower manufacturer, which in turn led to him successfully graduating as a builder and boat maker. After purchasing 85 hectares of land in the Coomera area, Longhurst bought a second-hand bulldozer and for
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a period of two years set about creating his theme park dream on 30 hectares of the site, working a 12 hour day, gouging out 800m of waterway, 30m wide and 3m deep; it was later filled with water and called the Murrissipi. This would be his signature upon the opening of his “kingdom.” Longhurst was later joined by Sydney furniture retailer Ken Lord and they developed the site together, employing Disney designers to design the park, which was further elaborated and completed by Australian architects. The park officially opened on December 15, 1981,
operating from Tuesdays to Thursdays and with approximately 220 employees. Attractions at that time included Main Street, Central Station, City Hall, vintage cars, the Cannon Ball Express, an Imax theatre, the Rocky Hollow log ride and the Captain Sturt steamboat-style paddle wheeler. Throughout the 1980s investment continued to be made
in a range of new rides and attractions. During the second year of operation, for example, the world’s longest (at the time) double loop roller coaster, The Thunderbolt, built by Meisho of Japan, made its debut (it was removed in 2004),
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