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Part two is now up, which covers John building Dreamworld and the many relationships he forged a long the way. John Longhurst's Dreamworld Stories - Building The Impossible - Part 2

For sure - at this stage i'm going to let these two circulate for the next several days and then go to work on the next part. Given how many ex opening day employees have been in touch with me after I put these out, i've come up with some new ideas on how to add to this series that go beyond John's original stories.

My guess will be that the arena will be used as a live site for those in the park who want to watch the games whilst there or a specific event

Movie World has a new 4D Experience showing in the Roxy Theatre: Emmet and his Master Builder friends return in The LEGO® Movie™ 4-D Experience®! Join the gang in their mission to thwart an Evil Secret Plot – the mischievous workings of scheming villain Risky Business. This custom-made 4-D Experience® combines dazzling, 3-D computer animation with real-world effects. https://movieworld.com.au/attractions/roxy-4d

Suffering a complete identity crisis, the Park continues to be soul stripped, seemingly without a care in the world. I'm absolutely loving the Longhurst interviews with @Roachie the last couple of days. Btw thank you so much for this fantastic piece of work - brilliant storytelling and I cannot wait for the next installment! Looking over this update makes me feel sad for DW and indeed for the Dream and Vision that Longhurst had for his Park. An unwavered determination and Passion that is something Ardent simply doesn't get. I hope there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the Park falls into the right hands before the dream is lost forever.

Technically the tallest gyro swing ride in Australia is The Beast (KMG XXL). Goliath would be the tallest 'non-portable' gyro swing ride in Australia. Or the tallest gyro-swing ride in Australia that is manufactured by Intamin.

Haven't yet read part 2, but wanted to add my encouragement for well-written and in-depth coverage/journalism. Upon reflection on part 1 I wonder in my head whether perhaps you'd written yourself into the story a little more than may have been necessary, but at the same time I acknowledge it was on your own blog (rather than OurWorlds where that would have been a bit more out of place), and it set up some context to how you'd gotten there. As a fellow professional I trust you won't read that as criticism for the sake of it, or even negatively (I wouldn't bother providing a critique if it wasn't worthy of it!). Just some uninformed feedback. ...and now having read part two consider my comments about writing yourself into it completely balanced out. Well done. Read it from start to end and very much enjoyed it.

Everyone here knows i'm a huge Dreamworld fan, and this year I had the great fortune to spend a day with the man who built the park with his bare hands, John Longhurst. After our first meeting, I came away with a recorded conversation about Dreamworld's history that lasted over an hour and a half, and has been later transcribed into some 16,000 words of what I reckon is some honestly brilliant stories. It also goes a little bit into my own personal history with the park; suffice to say you'll start to understand why i'm so passionate about the place when you read through the article. You can find the first part in a series of stories here - John Longhurst's Dreamworld Stories - Origins - Part 1 I think the magic in this piece comes from simply reading through John's own words, so rather than spoiling the stories at such an early time i'll instead post the pictures that are seen on the jump. Comments and questions are totally welcome. Some of John's many books about Walt Disney. Mr. Day's Coomera property the day John Longhurst bought it. One of John's many books containing a series of incredible photos. Hollywood Cottage, now defunct. As former General Manager for Special Projects, Bob Tan, mentioned to me recently, "As for the cottage, it was very unfortunate. I recall a buyer wanted to take it away and re-erect it at his property on the Gold Coast, but the management of the day decided we disassemble it and store it for future use. It ended up consumed by termites." Dreamworld's Main Street was heavily inspired by Walt Disney World's Main Street of the same name.

Did you know Goliath is the tallest gyro swing in Australia?

We had chatted about both but it wasn't recorded. He still absolutely loves those steam trains.

I Agree it looks stupid, but with ongoing works out of public hours I don't see why they cant put it on whilst they're working and take it off when they're not, I can just see something dumb happening and the cloth getting caught in something...

I did assume that Disney didn’t actually have any direct connection to the development of the park, but it’s great to read that John took ideas, designs and experiences from Disney and in a way, recreated them with his own style and thoughts

Cheers for the kind words! It's not in the stories yet, but fun fact - contrary to popular belief, Disney had no involvement in development of the park.

@Roachie another great read and it is really interesting reading about how much of an inspiration Disneyland was and how its ideas were implemented into DW. And the story behind the Thunderbolt, wow what a story that is. Can't wait for the rest of his story. And also, they have both been really well written.

Not at all, really great feedback, it's re-assuring to know you reached the same ultimate conclusion I did in regards to the narrative - had I approached it as a fact-finding mission for Parkz/OurWorlds I would've made it far more impartial and clear-cut, but I think putting it on my personal blog and it being in many ways something quite close for me I figured i'd tell it the way I wanted to, which I think was important for initially setting up why I did it in the first place. So yeah, great to hear you enjoyed it, i'm honestly really glad folks are getting something out of it - from what i've seen I think it's really hitting home for a lot of people who grew up with place.

Just a few thoughts I have from the update: - Good to see they are advertising the new attraction, and not leaving the fencing/walls blank - Hopefully some of those theming elements from Gold Rush are moved to RHLR (providing they fit the theme) - I assume the mesh/netting for Giant Drop is for 'extra safety' but if so, why not actually make it safer - I personally really like the new theming elements added to this end of Corroboree. - Where actually is this new 'amphitheatre'? - It is a shame that they have removed the train tunnel waterfall, and just replaced it with pool fencing. Surely a timber fence of sorts would've fitted much better. Even if it did cost a bit more and took a bit more time. - It is good to see a lot happening throughout the park, but it is disappointing that half finished things are left exposed for all to see (particularly in the Corroboree area, unless they are hidden, but photos were taken over the fence) - And that first piece of theming for the Dreamworks area (The archway over the door on the left building) 100% confirms it is Trolls, if it wasn't already. If this is just a temporary attraction, things surely should've been done much quicker, or issues resolved before construction began.

I believe that theming "addition" has been there since the ride first opened. For all I know, it could have been recently added to the signage but I definitely recall seeing it as part of The Giant Drop's logo in DW's brochures a decade ago and thought how clever it was to add it into the oil drop's reflection. It has featured at times in some form on DW's website since as early as 1998 when the ride first opened & this image from Dreamworld's current Giant Drop webpage has shown it since 2015: Good to see they've given The Giant Drop signage a new coat of paint though.

^ cool! Looks like a modern take on the Tilt'n'Wirl.