Gold Coast icons: What really happened to Grundy’s slides, Broadbeach Monorail and chairlift

The Gold Coast has a reputation for producing landmarks, only to knock them down in favour of something new. Here’s what really happened to some of your favourite icons.

THE Gold Coast has a reputation for producing a wide variety of landmarks, only to eventually knock them down in favour of something new.

Towers and tourist attractions have risen and fallen at an alarming rate over the past 65 years.

For many, memories and fading holiday snaps are all they have left to acknowledge what was once there.

The Bulletin this week discovered the fate of the Broadbeach monorail, which soared above the Gold Coast Highway for 27 years.

After being pulled down in 2017, the vehicles were relocated to an Arundel storage yard until they were auctioned off this year.

The only remaining complete train today sits in a paddock in Bathurst where its new owner plans to turn it into tourist accommodation.

It’s not the only Gold Coast land mark to get a second or third life.

While many attractions and historic buildings have ended up on the scrap heap, others have been relocated or ended up in the most unlikely of places.

Here’s what really happened to some key pieces of this city’s history.

COOLANGATTA WRECK

Hull of the ship Coolangatta on beach North Kirra, uncovered by heavy seas February 1974. Photo Bill Stafford.

The ship for which the suburb is named sank on Kirra Beach on the morning of Wednesday, 19th August, 1846.

The wreckage was swallowed by the sand and the area was named after it in 1883.

It remained long-forgotten until the remains of a large wooden vessel were uncovered on the beach during the 1974 floods and swept out to sea before eventually washing up at Bilinga where it was ransacked and broken up.

Pieces of it were eventually found at Tugun dump.

THE CAPTAIN STURT

Dreamworld's Captain Sturt Paddlewheeler which operated from the early 1980s until the year 2000. It was eventually dismantled and scrapped. Source: Dreamworld - Remembering the Golden Years.

A non-functioning paddle wheeler which was one of Dreamworld’s original attractions on opening day in 1981.

According to Dreamworld’s official history, it was the attraction closest to the heart of park founder John Longhurst.

He spent two years just developing the bush-themed zone known as Rivertown.

Dreamworld's Captain Sturt Paddlewheeler which operated from the early 1980s until the year 2000. It was eventually dismantled and scrapped. Source: Dreamworld - Remembering the Golden Years.

During the 1980s and 1990s parkgoers would climb aboard the vessel and ride around the river on an underwater railway where there was a bushranger-themed show.

The Captain Sturt was finally retired in 2012 and parked on the river, though its structure was beginning to fail. It was finally demolished in 2014, though much of the associated attractions such as the dock, the rail track and sheep sheering sheds remain.

MAGIC MOUNTAIN’S CHAIRLIFT

The old chairlift up to Magic Mountain on the Gold Coast Picture: Supplied

Magic Mountain is best-remembered for its days as a theme park in the 1970s and 1980s, though it originated as a chairlift in Miami in the early 1960s.

The chairlift remained until the park’s initial closure in the late 1980s before it was bought and relocated to Dreamworld where it continued to operate for more than 20 years.

It was finally retired in the late 2000s.

GRUNDY’S SLIDES

The beloved slides, which overlooked Surfers Paradise beach opened in April 1981 and became internationally famous after appearing in the music video for Australian Crawl song Errol.

They became instantly popular with locals and tourists and were a staple of school holidays through the 1980s.

The slides closed in 1987 and were removed from Surfers Paradise

The slides themselves were eventually sold to a theme park operator in the US according to Mermaid Beach businessman Alf Vockler, whose company built them.

BROADBEACH CAROUSEL

The Broadbeach Mall Carousel.

This family favourite was best-known for its decades in Broadbeach, but this was actually the carousel’s second life.

A key component of Grundy’s during its earliest days, it was installed in the heart of the Paradise Centre in 1981.

An antique built in the earliest years of the 20th century, it was founder Reg Grundy’s favourite ride and was used by children for a decade.

It was ultimately bought by the Gold Coast City Council and relocated to Broadbeach Mall where it operated for nearly 30 years, finally being closed in 2018.

It has since been put into storage by the council where it remains today.

SPEEDCOASTER/TWISTER

Cades County Water Park circa 1984 Supplied photo.

The SpeedCoaster and Twister combo was the marquee attraction at Cades County Water Park when it opened in 1984.

Originally know as the Speed Slide, it was tallest structure in the park and offered a rapid ride straight down to the pool below.

The Twister was a pair of two intertwining closed-tube slides which were built onto the same structure.

In their 1980s and 1990s heyday the slides would have long lines of parkgoers.

But by the late 2000s the pair were finally replaced with the Aqualoop as part of a park refresh.

This didn’t mark the end though - both were relocated to Canberra and installed a the Big Splash water park.

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