1977 courtesy of Blacktown City Council. Technically not satellite of course. They may have 80s aerial photos somewhere, just not online.

Not going to help with this particular circumstance, but for historical QLD images, go to https://qimagery.information.qld.gov.au/

You can select suburbs, or even sections of the map. It will then search and report back any aerial's it finds. There are some good ones of the Studio's, then Movie World under construction, then complete on there. Haven't checked out the other parks.

17 hours ago, westical said:

Be careful what you wish for.

Awesome! Any more?

I did find a website with lots of aerial maps, some going back 50 years, but they cost.

Also, as mentioned, here's a 1988 map look at Waterworks area [centre of page]. While there is nothing labelled as such, nor any boundaries, etc, you will however see a very differently shaped Stout Road... and Kurrajong Avenue is a dead end!

Edited September 13, 20187 yr by DavidB1

On 10/09/2018 at 8:48 PM, djrappa said:

This’d be it then 

Bingo. That is the site. Not sure if the actual site was larger though.

I remember the theme song went something like this "the waterworks so conquer a tube now"

On 13/09/2018 at 6:02 AM, westical said:

1977 courtesy of Blacktown City Council. Technically not satellite of course. They may have 80s aerial photos somewhere, just not online.

That's a very good map! I found it too. Map photos from 2016 and 1977.

Has this been posted? No? Good.

 

The rocky rapids type slide at the end looks excellent. Worlds steepest water slide?

 

And this

 

 

Edited September 16, 20187 yr by Gazza

Fairly off-topic but related to this park, but I wasn't aware the old waterworks on Manly Cove was related to the Mt Druitt one (as alluded to in the commercial), that one still operates today more than 20 years after the Mt Druitt one shut its doors, renamed to "Manly Surf n Slide" and still has all the old slides, except one which got demolished after some kid broke their arm on it. That little park has always interested me, used to go there a lot when I was younger and it is interesting that they cram so much into a little space. (they are planning to demolish everything and build some proslide slides in a few years tho)

Those quirky old water parks were built in a bygone era - in the late 70's-early 80's when health and safety regulations in theme parks weren't exactly a big thing and primitive, unique, yet fairly dodgy water slides that were built in-house were the only waterslides (you can see them on the water mountain slides at Adventure World), no Proslide or Whitewater West in those days. Yet those dodgy water slides have an odd charm to them that will likely never be matched by giant Tornados, Aqualoops or bowl slides.

Strangely enough, for some reason, the Mt Druitt waterpark's cousin up north has survived Wonderland, Luna Park's 3 times it reopened and Wet N Wild, still making money today even though those waterslides are staring down the barrel of being almost 40 years old.

20 hours ago, Gazza said:

 

 

The rocky rapids type slide at the end looks excellent. Worlds steepest water slide?

 

Funny was only thinking this the other day after watching several Youtube videos that featured similar rides.

Adventure World in Perth has something similar.

This one in Brazil looks fun....

 

This one in Germany looks like an Insurance Nightmare!! Looks fun though.....

This one is more of a Whitewater river than a slide but they look are far superior to your average Lazy river.

Another good one from the Bahamas.

This one in England looks fun without any tubes or rafts required.

This one at the venerable Action Park requires you to wear a helmet!!!!! Bit too extreme for Australia methinks!

This is TeAwa, The Fearless River and Volcano Bay and is far and away the best attraction at this park. This is the type of attraction that our Australian Water parks need- they are massive crowd soakers and lots of fun. I rode this 12 months ago with my family and friends and I reckon we did the loop at least 20 times. Brilliant- if Jamberoo put in something akin to this it would be a highlight attraction. Although when we rode this last year, there was no requirement to wear a safety vest.

Would love to see more examples of these type of slides in our parks-they are fun and thrilling yet the whole family can partake. 

In saying that, I would have loved to have ridden those slides at The Water Works Mt Druitt, although I cant help but feel that the parks may shy away from these type of slides due to slow throughput and propensity for injury and muckraking.....

Who else would like to see something similar to these examples in one of our water parks?

The company who did the Waterworks actually built three of them: Manly, Mount Druitt and Cairns. All three had the similar 4 enclosed slides and were built in 1980/81. Cairns in the 80’s didn’t have much for us kids to do and going to the Waterworks was the greatest. 

The best thing about these types of slides is that the water could be blocked at the top by a few people and their mats sitting side by side, creating a dam. Then when the water was high enough everyone would launch into the slide. You and ten mates and a torrent of water with arms and legs going everywhere. You could get pretty beat up, especially when you hit the ‘big’ corner on the fastest slide. 

The Cairns Waterworks closed in about 1988 to make way for an office tower but the slides themselves were relocated to Sugarworld, a small park in the Cairns suburbs next to a sugar mill. They lasted until 2010 when they were removed due to rusting steel supports. The fibreglass slides were offered for sale for $22 000. 

Unfortunately the slides at Sugarworld were replaced by modern but low capacity open air flumes and a four person racer. That was the great thing about the old slides, high capacity and a crap load of fun, not to mention barely enforced safety rules. The good old days I guess. 

Quality 80’s advertising jingle.