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I recently got to visit both Luna Park Melbourne & Adventure Park Geelong for the first time. Like the other Victoria parks that I visited late last year, I didn't know much about these parks. All I knew was Luna Park had one of the oldest coasters in the world and Adventure Park had some very colourful slides. Luna Park Melbourne Located in St Kilda along the beach, this is defintiley the easiest park in Victoria to get to and is probably why it's one of the more popular parks (particularly for toursits). However (spoiler alert), it’s pretty disappointing. I haven’t been to Luna Park Sydney as a comparison, but Luna Park Melbourne needs a lot of work done and a real vision for what it could really be. I didn’t have high expectations before visiting, but to be honest, it was actually worse than my low expectations. Before going into my issues with the park and how I think it can improve, here’s the positives. There is a lot of history for this park and the entrance is certainly impressive. If you arrive my tram, it’s the first thing you see leading up to the park and with its architectural style and the coaster looping around the park, it’s unlike any other park I’ve been too. Watching the coaster go past over the entrance was very cool to watch, particularly as it’s relatively slow moving along the straights. If you haven’t ever been to Luna Park Melbourne, essentially The Great Scenic Railway surrounds the entire perimeter of the park, with all of the other rides spread throughout the park, with a couple of food options and stores. There’s quite a lot of the park that is heritage listed, so there is a lot of traditional and ‘unique’ buildings within the park. The Luna Palace building is currently undergoing a major refurbishment, so a large portion of the park felt like a construction site. But when complete next year, it will increase the footprint of this area of the land and allow for more rides and event spaces. So the first ride of the day was of course The Great Scenic Railway. This was honestly the main reason for wanting to visit the park and it was genuinely a lot of fun. Because it’s unlike anything else in the country (and really the world because of its age), it is so unique and is definitely something that got to be ridden. The station building is actually beautiful and it looked like it recently received a repaint because the colours were very vibrant. The cars were very tight and did cause a few bruises in a couple of moments throughout the ride, but that’s all part of the fun right? Having a human operating the brakes on board was so strange to witness and I feel like it’s something that won’t be around for much longer. The layout itself provided great views of the Melbourne landscape and it did pick up a bit of speed on the drops (maybe even the smallest bit of airtime), but otherwise it’s a pretty slow ride, but that gives it one of the longest ride times for any coaster in the country. Some of the other rides we did were Supernova (similar to SWs Trident, but it actually operates), the carousel, ghost train and speedy beetle (SBF Visa spinning coaster). All of these were fine, nothing to brag about, and most of the other rides were either something you found at a carnival or something I wasn’t interested in riding. So now onto my issues with this park. There is a lot of concrete. In fact, the entire park was just one big slab of concrete that became pretty hot, considering we visited on a cooler day. There was no landscaping (and if there was, so little that it went unnoticed); it needs some greenery to bring some life to the park. There was almost no shade, very little seating and the park felt old. Yes, it is a very old park, but that doesn’t mean it should feel old and dirty. I mentioned earlier the Scenic Railways station was beautiful (I actually loved looking at it), but it was mostly hidden by food trucks and a couple umbrellas. They should be showcasing this history, not hiding it behind stuff. With the major construction project that’s happening definitely isn’t helping the park, so I’ll have to visit it again when that’s all complete, but the way the park was laid out felt awkward and crowded. I know a lot of the rides aren’t permanently fixed to the ground so they can rearrange things as they feel necessary. But the park feels like it needs a master plan to work out what it’s trying to achieve. There are a few rides I’d say just get ride of (providing they aren’t heritage listed) and that allows for new and more exciting things to take their place. There was a kids train that was driving through the park, but on a busy day it just gets in the way. It’s honking at everyone because people aren’t moving because there’s such little space to move. I can see this park has so much potential and I hope the recently management can turn it around to take advantage of its location, history and what it could be. I wasn’t expecting great rides, but I did hope to feel the charm and history and such an iconic park. And for me I just didn’t feel it. I didn’t expect it to be like the Gold Coast parks, or even Funfields/Gumbuya that I got to visit last year, but I left the park disappointed. Maybe I’m being too critical of Luna Park Melbourne (so I’m interested to hear others thoughts), but I do hope post this major development of Luna Palace, the park begins to transform into what it could be. Adventure Park Geelong Located just over an hour south of Melbourne (20 minutes east from Geelong), I also didn’t know much about Adventure Park Geelong and its offerings. All I knew about were the colourful tornado style slides that opened in recent years. This park has a good range of both water slides and dry rides spread across the park, but what makes this place special is the massive lake in the middle that has endless boardwalks and green spaces surrounding it. For the most part, it is a very pretty park (I’ll get into this more later). At the front of the park are all the dry rides (and a couple old slides) and then across the lake is all the newer water slides with the pro-slides, lazy river, racer and kids play/splash zones. Our group had a treetop cabana during our visit, which provided a good view of the pro-slide attractions and was a good location to store all our belongings. As there’s no wave pool, there’s no ‘central’ location to keep your stuff like you would at a normal water park. There are some loungers and grass areas around the lazy river, but if you’re visiting a cabana might be a good idea on a busier day. We started with the Tornado and Tsunami. These are comparable to Green Room and Triole Vortex at WhiteWater World… but better. The Tornado (while a smaller model compared to the GC versions) has a great build up to the drop and certainly has a great pace. And Tsunami is a lot better than Triple Vortex (I just used it as a comparison because it has three funnels), as you ride in the standard clover rafts and the slide gets some really good speed and you actually drop into each of the funnels. The last funnel is fully enclosed and does slow you down, but it picks up speed again into the final splashdown. On the left side of the park is the other area of the water park, which features a large lazy river, with the kids zones and aqua racer in the middle. The Aqua Racer is a clone of the one that used to be at WnW, so it gives quite a bit of airtime on the last few drops. The lazy river has one main entry/exit point and something WnW should take note of, a queue line. To the side of the entrance is a queue line that is used on the parks busier days to help organise the chaos of waiting for a raft. There is also a wave machine at one point of the river, but unfortunately it was not operating during our visit (Gumbuya World had one operating and it makes the lazy river become river rapids, which is always good fun). There are some cabanas behind the river and they actually have their own private access to the river, seperate from the main entrance point. And the final water attractions are at the front of the park, which are two more traditional double raft slides that are (almost) pitch black and throw you around and get some good speed towards the end. The parks food offerings are for the most part your standard theme park items, but they were surprisingly cheap compared to most other parks I’ve been too. Burgers were around $12 and then a regular combo was $8, which included chips and a drink. And it was good quality too! Now it was time for the dry rides and there’s quite a good selection of them too. There was most of your normal expected flat rides, but there was also a wave swinger, large Ferris wheel, traditional carousel and SBF Visa spinning coaster. All of these were well presented and they were laid out very well across the front of the park. They also had two mini golf courses and paddle boats (on the lake) that were included with your general admission ticket. Overall the park was very clean, looked after, nicely presented and had a solid variety of attractions that easily fills your day. All of the staff were great and reasonably efficient. However there were a couple of negatives/areas to improve. Firstly, the entrance was very underwhelming. There was a large lawn area, with some shade sails and then the ticket booths. There was no big park sign and nothing to welcome you. It was very strange to not see a park sign at the entrance to the park. Secondly, the park has a massive winter night event and Christmas night event that apparently pulls massive crowds for both events. However, they don’t take any of the decorations down when the events aren’t on. That means, throughout the entire park are mesh animals, Christmas decorations and Christmas lights. And I mean everywhere. From every point in the park, you could these decorations and a lot of them aren’t in good condition either. I’d imagine this event has run for a few years now because a lot of it was looking pretty tired (probably because it’s left out all year round). It’s a shame they don’t pack it all away when the events aren’t running because I can see how pretty the park is, but you’ve got all the stuff everywhere. I can appreciate why they wouldn’t because there is so much of it and it would take a long time to remove and setup, but also, they would need a massive shed to store it all as well. Also, this park has a lot of land. There were (essentially) fields of land within the parks fences for so much potential expansion. The park could definitely benefit from even more water slides and maybe even a wave pool. I haven’t checked, but I’d guess you could even fit a DC Rivals on the land they’ve got (they wouldn’t have the budget for it, but just to put it in perspective). This park is already very solid and definitely worth a visit and I’m keen to see what they do in the future. Final Score My final score based off my first visit to both parks would be a 3/10 for Luna Park Melbourne and a 7/10 for Adventure Park Geelong.

Time to compare the two SBF Visa spinning coasters that we have in Victoria. Vote by Tuesday (want to speed the unintresting coasters up, will do the same for the next ones which will be the mini Zamperla coasters)

Green Valley Farm - 4/2/2023 https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/green-valley-farm Green Valley Farm is a place that I’ve wanted to visit for a while now. It’s located between Inverell, Glen Innes and Armidale on the New England tablelands. https://goo.gl/maps/fDb4G82QANByWfXy7 I’ve been up and down the New England highway multiple times, but It’s always been late afternoon etc, or in the cold months when the slide is closed (And who wants to miss out on an old school treasure like that) so the timing never really has lined up. The place fascinated me because it has a lot of play equipment identical to the things seen at the (in)famous Monash playground in SA (Google, or search forums and there are some threads about it) Originally I thought that when Monash closed down they had been relocated to Green Valley, but it turns out the plans were actually shared by the original designer, Grant Telfer, and the owners of Green Valley built replicas. It’s all great fun, but you can hurt yourself if you are being careless (i managed to bang/cut both shins within 15 mins of arrival) , which led to Monash closing in the 80s, with a more ‘sanitised’ playground opening in the 90s. But Green Valley lives on! More recently, when the ECC were on their Australian tour several people broke away from the main group and went on a rather wild day trip aiming to get a ride on the park's single rail, human powered shuttle coaster. (Hilariously, that coaster is on rcdb now https://rcdb.com/20449.htm ) Anyhow, fast forward to a few weeks ago and @Noxegon mentioned was coming to Australia and wanted to go. That was the kick in the backside i needed to finally make more of an effort to go there, and we figured out a plan where I could drive down to Glen Innes on a Friday night, pick him up from Armidale airport, head to the park and then press on to the GC for DW and SW the next day. Easy drive, a few signs by the road let you know when you are near. And finally you arrive at the car park. Actually a reasonable number of cars for a park in the middle of nowhere. Judging by online reviews, the place has a bit of a cult following and well regarded by generations. You enter through a museum in a mud brick building. I’ll spare you the photos of the siamese calf taxidermy though! Reminded me of the ‘historical society’ museums you see in many country towns, with lots of old farm equipment, old signs, guns, gemstones etc. Towards the end you sign a waiver (I guess its fair, if you want to do all this old school fun stuff without padding, there is an element of risk) and pay your admission. At $15 its a bargain. Yes the park is pretty old, but to be honest the water slide itself would cost you $15 elsewhere. And you find yourself in the park, a large grassy field with various elements scattered around. Instantly you are transported back to those old school adventure parks like Greenhills, Puzzle Park, Kinkuna Country, Arakoon, Wyangala etc. Didn’t do the mini golf. Most of the play equipment can only be used by those over 10 given the responsibility involved, and plenty of adults were having a go. I did my best to document all of them. A few of the good ones included: The 3 way seesaw. The 1 person spring loaded seesaw. The giant rocking giraffe, which I managed to draw blood on by going a bit too fast. What I called the “Catapult Swing”, where the entire structure tilts back and forth, as well as the swing itself. The “satellite” dish. The rotary cone. Tire pile that you can literally fall down the middle of, but great for a vantage point. Monash had way more slides, but one of the designs made it here. You ride on a hessian mat, but still almost stall out on the flat bits. But of course the main drawcard is the roller coaster. It’s entirely fenced, so you just jump the fence wherever and have a go when it's your turn. Pushing it up the slope is a bit like pushing the sled across the floor at gym on leg day. Eventually you reach a small platform where the track levels off and you can jump in, and then it's time to push off. The transitions between slope and level are at sharp angles, so there’s a bit of a jolt at each one. And it’s loud! Sounded like TOT. There’s one particularly hard bump as you come up the first slope from the low point. Oddly, they did make the spike at one end a nice curve. You then roll backwards, and partway up the first slope, and oscillate a couple of times. No brakes so it's up to you to stick an arm or leg out to bring yourself to a proper stop.The great thing is you can brave it backwards too for free, but those jarring transitions cannot be anticipated if you are going in reverse. Overall, not the fastest thing, but good fun just because of janky and out of control it feels. The park also has a rather nice garden centred around the house and the kiosk. Various animals and birds on display. They used to have monkeys but a sign mentioned that they got rid of them due to the “huge regulations” now governing their care. Macaws now live in their old run. The merry go round constitutes the sole mechanical ‘ride’. The kiosk, again you are transported back to a 90s milk bar, with the smell of dripping permeating the air and an array of lolly jars with the whole “3 for 10c” type deal going. Food is well priced and handmade. There’s a nice display with some photos of the park being built. The last thing I did was the water slide. Is it just me, or are long body slides like this not a thing anymore. It seemed every decent country town would have a mammoth like this. Nowadays new slides all feel like they are over in 10 seconds. You’re given a spiel by the lady at the slide kiosk with the rules and then essentially left to your own devices. The stairs are literally just treads made of steel pipe, similar to the giant slide. Mats are on offer if you want to get a bit of extra speed. First ride without one was a bit of a crawl. With the mat they suggest trying it wrapped around you like a burrito. Well, that turns the thing into hyperdrive, with so much speed that the water piles up in front of you, forming wave. Wowee! The bit for the toddlers seemed fairly new, and more to the standard as you’d see in a caravan park these days. Same goes for the kids playground and jumping pillow. Obviously the stuff for younger kids is a bit ‘safer’ I think we stuck around for 2 or 3 hours, did 3 goes on the coaster and had a go at most of the equipment. Overall, it's worth a stop if you are in the area and feel like stepping back in time, and hey, its only $15 (And the patch was $1)

Adventure Park near Geelong have just announced their new waterslide for the 19/20 season, the triple funnel four person raft slide called Tsunami, located next to the existing Tornado Slide. It's expected to open in November but unfortunately guests will still have to carry up their rafts, as the conveyor is not scheduled to be installed for another 2 years! Still it's great to see the Victorian parks continue to invest in new attractions. Funfields is now the only one remaining who haven't revealed their new 19/20 attraction.