Cairns water park seeks approval

Australia’s water park boom looks set to continue with plans recently being submitted to Cairns regional council for Adventure Waters, a new $30 Million water park.

Image: Adventure Waters. Adventure Waters submits its plans to the local council for development approval.

By Parkz News
15 April 2009

The project, brainchild of Cairns businessman Paul Freebody, was originally revealed as ‘Adventure Mountain’ in October last year, since then the name has been changed to Adventure Waters better reflect its water park nature.

Like many of the recent large water park projects in Australia, industry leader ProSlide Technology will be delivering the bulk of the attractions.

On opening day guests can expect to see a solid line-up, including.

-A five person ‘Mammoth River’ slide.

-A six lane ‘Octopus Racer’, where guests race individually through an enclosed helix, before emerging into a parallel race to the finish line.

-Four ‘PIPEline’ inner tube slides.

-A ‘Tornado 45’, a slightly more compact version of the attraction seen at the Gold Coast water parks.

-A centralised Lazy River, with features such as a wave generator, lagoon with spas, as well as a number of thematic elements the river will pass through, including a temple, fortress with water cannons, and cave.

-Two children’s areas; a shaded pool with themed water play elements, as well as Whitewater West water play structure, featuring the obligatory giant tipping bucket.

-A Flowrider surfing attraction.

The future is equally exciting, with a $7 Million stage 2 set of attractions pencilled in, including a couple of the newest attraction concepts out there.

-An Australian first ‘BowlingALLEY’ slide, which sends guests down two tight ‘toilet bowl’ elements in sucession.

-A ‘TantrumALLEY’, essentially two interconnected ‘mini tornadoes’ guests are washed through in the dark.

-A pair of open ‘Plummet’ slides, as well as a high speed enclosed ‘Turbo Tunnel’.

A birdseye view of Adventure Waters' planned design.

Provisions have also been made for a ‘Mammoth Plunge’ style slide to be built at some point.

Adventure Waters will charge around $39 for Adults and $27 for Children, and expects to draw around 250,000 visits per year, with the local market accounting for over 20% of those visits. They expect to create around 200 jobs, and nearly $12 million is expected to be generated each year from admission, food and beverage, and retail.