Remember when: The big clubbie of Wavebreak Island was proposed as a tourist attraction

THE Big Clubbie of Wavebreak Island was proposed as the Gold Coast’s next major tourist attraction in one of the more bizarre ideas the city has seen.

Gold Coast Bulletin Front Page, April 24, 1997.

Gold Coast Bulletin, April 24, 1997.

THE Big Clubbie of Wavebreak Island was proposed as the Gold Coast’s next major tourist attraction in one of the more bizarre ideas the city has seen.

Forget Nambour’s Big Pineapple and Ballina’s Big Prawn, a revolving bronze Aussie lifesaver was set to be the biggest tourist landmark of them all.

That was, if businessman Lloyd Bond had his way with Wavebreak Island.

But plans for the $180 million, 109-metre colossus left politicians bewildered and environmentalists up in arms.

Mr Bond was chairman and creative director of Imagineering International.

The finished product, had it been built would have been larger than the Sydney Opera House and taller than the Statue of Liberty

Mr Bond’s visionary creation would include a recreation of Uluru, measuring 200m long, 140m wide and 55m tall.

On top would be a 54m high bronze surf lifesaver planned to revolve three times a day and act as a barometer by way of his lifesaver’s cap and briefs.

Inside the lifesaver’s reel was to be the Reel Restaurant, accessible by a central life, chairlift and four separate walkways up the rock.

The rock structure was to be 15 storeys high and house a 6000-seat amphitheatre, a 500-roon hotel, a recreated rainforest with revolving barges over a coral reef floor and a casino or conference room with restraints, shops, museum and observatory.

Mr Bond hoped t finance the project form Asian investors if the State Government and council were supportive.

He was due to meet with Premier Rob Borbidge and the council the day of publication.