Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size When 1960s television show Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo was broadcast in 128 countries, Waratah Park Wildlife Sanctuary became an international drawcard as the home of Skippy, with more appeal for children than Sydney's Harbour Bridge and Opera House. But foreign travellers who turn up at Waratah Park in Duffy's Forest, in the north of Sydney, now will find the gates closed, the rangers' headquarters dilapidated and the wildlife park no longer in operation. Left: Skippy and Sonny-Garry Pankhurst made Waratah Park a destination. Now it is closed forever. Credit:Gerrit Fokkema Iranian Reza Taheri was disappointed when he made the pilgrimage to Skippy's home hoping to see his first kangaroo. “Skippy meant a lot to me and to so many Iranians who spent their childhood during the terrible eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in 1980s. Our cities were bombed by Saddam's aircraft but in the midst of such a nasty situation, Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo endowed us with joy, happiness and strength..I believe that Skippy in a way saved our childhood,” he said. Like many Sydney childhood staples, Waratah Park is no more. In 2014 it was handed over to Sydney's Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, who along with volunteers are working to restore the bushland around the Heritage listed Rangers building, and seeking grants and money to save it. Many tourists still seek out what was then Australia’s best known film set, in hope of patting a kangaroo at the wildlife park says volunteer and "Skippy tragic" Peter Staff.


“Skippy was bigger than the Beatles, people still come to see what was the world’s most famous sandstone wall and flagpole... knocking it down would be like destroying the Sydney Opera House,” he said. Waratah Park even had it's own record. Although fictional, Waratah Park is but one of the many Sydney theme parks that once were meccas for holiday fun – that are now no more. Gone forever in a puff of smoke like the 2018 fire that destroyed the Uluru roadhouse, once part of Leyland Brothers World theme park, which the brothers ran on the Pacific Highway north of Newcastle before they went bankrupt. The giant dinosaurs no longer roam Paradise Gardens at Cattai (now a golf course), and Andalusian horses no longer prance at El Caballo Blanco in the south-western Sydney suburb of Catherine Park near Narellan. It's as if an epidemic has obliterated our amusement parks, like the equine flu that swept through the stables of the magnificent white horses, causing the closure of the theme park in 2007. El Caballo Blanco in 1998. Credit:Sylvia Vincent From horsies to pokies: El Caballo Blance site gets new club The El Caballo Blanco fun park site in Sydney's south-west is no longer home to horses but new houses and a club funded by poker machine revenue. In 1974 Ray Williams opened the first El Caballo Blanco in Perth, featuring dancing Andalusian stallions ridden by performers in Spanish costume. The concept rode into Catherine Fields in Sydney in 1979 and was exported to Disneyland in the 1980s. Read more here Wet 'n' Wild Sydney is the most recent casualty. It was announced earlier this month it will be renamed Raging Waters Sydney by its new owner, the Spanish-based international theme park operator Parques Reunidos, when it reopens in September.


The litany of lost fun parks is as long as a waterslide at the now defunct Mount Druitt Waterworks (1981-1991). Their fates have had as many twists and turns, and financial failure has been the cause of many a closure. Loading Sad relics from Magic Kingdom still lie abandoned after the Lansvale theme park closed in the 1990s. Most poignantly, the old shoe from the nursery rhyme “the old woman who lived in a shoe” is now overgrown with weeds and the land was sold to developers in 2017. Meanwhile Old Sydney Town at Somersby, which from 1975 brought Sydney’s early brutal history alive, has met the same sad fate as its convicts flogged by red coated soldiers. Last year it went under the auctioneer's hammer and was flogged to developers for $15 million. Funland at Warragamba Dam is now in total rusty disrepair. Credit:Nathan Lehmann Australia's Wonderland at Eastern Creek took its name from the early 1900s theme park of the same name that was situated at Tamarama. Opened to much fanfare in 1985, by the then NSW Premier Neville Wran, Australia's Wonderland operated for 19 years before it was demolished. Its run was longer than its namesake ‘Wonderland City’ in the east. Modelled on New York's Coney Island, the Tamarama attraction was open for just five years from 1906 until 1911. Bullens Animal World, a safari-style theme park in Wallacia, where guests would drive their own cars down meandering dirt roads to observe mainly African animals, operated from 1969 to 1985. Super Eight footage of the Bullen family's elephants may still exist in many Sydney homes, along with memories of the often sleepy lions who lay about until feeding time, when the giant cats would occasionally jump onto visiting vehicles.


Daniel Talbot who grew up in South Penrith, remembers the wild cats, lions and monkeys at the theme park. “One time a monkey stole my sister’s new glasses straight off her face which gives you an idea of how close you could get,” said Mr Talbot who now lives in Lake Macquarie. “My uncle was on a dairy farm out at Mulgoa and if any of the cattle had a mishap they would come and collect them to use for food for the lions." African Lion Safari in 1984. Credit:Gerrit Alan Fokkema The Bullen family also operated the African lion safari, where in 1995, several lionesses escaped, terrorising the nearby townships of Warragamba and Silverdale and killing a dog. This park closed in 1991. Nearby, also at Warragamba, Funland, once filled with children's rides such as trains, metal slides, a merry-go-round and a small ferris wheel, is now in rusty disrepair. It closed due to the nearby theme park competition. The Manly Fun Pier, which operated from 1931 until 1989, remains a favourite for Lyn Pinson from Mulgoa.


“I loved the rides with a pit of pace, the Octopus which went out over the water, the Mexican whip which would whip you around making some good dizzy fun and the Sizzler at the far end of the pier," she recalls. “My nemesis was always the mirror maze, I was never successful getting out of there without some help." The Octopus at the Manly Fun Pier in 1986. Credit:Trevor James Robert Dallen Smokey Dawson's ranch operated on 11 hectares at Ingleside from 1957, as a venue to host country music shows, a horse riding school and a holiday camp for children, before the country singer died in 2008. Another under the radar theme park and sister site to El Caballo Blanco was the now long gone Notre Dame, once Australia's largest private zoo owned by Emmanual Margolin, a used car salesman. While many Sydney theme parks may have gone, the theme songs that advertised them live on: who could forget El Caballo Blanco (to the tune of una paloma blanca), Ho Ho Ho it's Magic for Magic Kingdom, Australia's Wonderland ("the greatest fun you ever had") and African Lion safari ("it's scary and nobody cares".) Loading Many remain hopeful of an amusement park revival. Some theme parks, like Australiana Village at Wilberforce have reopened or been re-imagined and revved up, like the once tame Butterfly Farm, also at Wilberforce which now includes the Indy 800 Go-Kart track. Gia Cattiva, who runs the ShhhSydney blog which examines Sydney's forgotten past and specialises in abandoned amusement parks, believes "our adventure destinations are cursed".

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