Key events covering the closure of Australia’s Wonderland and the demolition of the park, from the February 2004 sale announcement through to the dismantling of the major rides in 2005. Compiled from staff accounts, news reports and on-site photographs.
Hartford Lane Pty Ltd entered into a Put and Call Option Deed with Paclib Industrial Pty Ltd to dispose off Wonderland Sydney, the land measuring 58.87 hectares (Lot 11, Plan 1025320) and buildings, structures and theme park rides thereon for a total of $52.5 million AUD, excluding Goods and Services Tax, paying $10 million at exchange and the balance payable on settlement in January 2005.
Hartford Lane Pty Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eastern Glory Enterprises Ltd.
Hartford being the Trustee of Sunway Australia Unit Trust , the registered owner of the Property.
International Theme Park Pty. Ltd. the operator of wonderland is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Estonia Enterprises Ltd which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eastern Glory Enterprises Ltd. Eastern Glory Enterprises Ltd is a 60% owned subsidiary of Sunway Lagoon Sdn Bhd which is a 51% owned subsidiary of Suncity.
Both Estonia Enterprises Ltd and Eastern Glory Enterprises Ltd are companies incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.
Paclib Industrial Pty Ltd a special purpose vehicle with a paid-up share capital of A$2.00.
The Board of Directors wishes to inform the Exchange that International Theme Park Pty Ltd (a company incorporated in Australia), the operator of Wonderland Sydney in Australia will be closing its theme park operation latest by middle of this year. This decision was taken in view of persistent losses incurred and difficult market conditions.
He cited events including September 11, the Ansett and HIH collapses, bushfires and SARS.
When we took over eight years ago, the park’s future was uncertain, Since then, we have lifted the overall performance of the park, completely rebuilt its image and brand awareness but this had not been enough. Wonderland’s 400 employees will get their full entitlements and help to find new jobs.
Stephen Galbraith
Dragons Flight, Merry-Go-Round and Baby Bumpers were put in shipping containers and sent to ‘Sunway Lagoon’ Malaysia.
Dragons Flight in the shipping container.
The space probe, demon and the snowy river rampage were reported to be seen operating from outside the park.
Snowy river rampage geysers were operating.
Who would’ve thought that they would ever see all 4 trains together?!
Bush Beasts Yellow PTC Train, minus two cars, under the cover of the stables in the back paddock behind Minchinbury reservoir.
Beasties two blue PTC Trains under the cover of the stables in the back paddock behind Minchinbury reservoir.
Bush Beasts Red PTC Train and two Yellow PTC carriages in the back paddock behind Minchinbury reservoir.
Most of the rides still on site were removed.
Bounty’s Revenge was dismantled and sent to Sunway Lagoon.
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The Great Balloon Race was dismantled and taken off site by its new owner.
Galleon’s Graveyard was dismantled and taken off site by its new owner.
The Broken Hill Mill Games Arcade in Gold Rush was dismantled and taken off site by its new owner.
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Little Monsters Flying School was dismantled and taken off site by its new owner.
Demolition of the park starts.
The Demon is completely down but still on site.
The Canadian company came over to pull the Demon down did not have the relevant demolition licence so they subcontracted it out to some guy at the last minute. This guy thought he could charge what he wanted ($500 an hour to be precise) because there was such urgency to get the Demon down and out. After the Demon was down and out of the park the original Canadian company, who were contracted to pull it down, decided not to pay guy his exorbitant fee using the distance between the two countries as a safe haven. This also impacted on Visionland who purchased the ride and they were also chased for payment even though it was outside their contract with the Canadian “experts”. They may have made a verbal agreement to get things moving but verbal agreements can have a nasty habit of changing or disappearing.
All this mess with lawsuits to play out helped cause the lateness of the approvals to demo rest of the park which then caused heat for a certain ex-Wonderland CEO. This in turn damaged the negotiations for Visionland to buy the Bush Beast and Beastie coaster cars.
On arrival ambulance officers found a male in his early 30s trapped on a platform inside the tower approximately 30 metres above the ground. SCAT paramedics and a doctor from Careflight arrived on scene to assist in treating the patient.
He was released two and a half hours later and taken to Westmead hospital with a back injury in a stable condition.
The owners of ‘HMS Endeavor’ (believed to be Sunway) were given access to the site and started started dismantling the ride.
HMS Endeavor was then moved out to the back paddock.
Sonfena demolitions is contracted in and they start in Gold Rush near where HMS was and work they way down towards the Bush Beast.
The back road was opened up at the end of the new wonderland drive and a path cleared to allow direct access from Probe & Zodiac to the back paddock.
They started the diesel motor on Zodiac and manually operated the lift cylinders as per evac when no power is available, lowering the western arm ready for the gondolas to be removed.
Sonfena demolitions was given the go-ahead to finish and complete a non recoverable demolition on the entire park as quickly as possible, the only areas they were instructed not to touch was the fenced off area around the Zodiac, Space Probe.
One of the steal cables from the Sky Rider was taken down and wrapped around the bushbeast and then connected to two D9 bulldozers which tried to pull the bush beast over, the bulldozers moved towards the Snowy River Rampage pushing everything in there path into the Snowy River Rampage with the cable around the Bush Beast and a dozer on each end of the cable they tried to pull the Bush Beast over, The Bush Beast did not go down without a fight, the SkyRider cable snapped several times and in the end they just drove the dozers through the supports with the structure coming down behind them..
