Wet’n’Wild’s: Inside story of Gold Coast theme park’s 1984 opening as Cades County Water Park

Wet’n’Wild, originally known as Cades County Water Park, opened with a bang 40 years ago but disaster soon struck. FIND OUT MORE

The Gold Coast’s love affair with attractions dates back more than 60 years.

It started in the 1960s with the Miami Chairlift but it was the 1980s when the Glitter Strip went theme-park crazy.

Between 1981 and 1991 the openings of Dreamworld, Magic Mountain, Movie World and Grundy’s brought big rides to the Coast and put the region on the map.

But its reputation as an aquatic fun zone was bolstered 40 years ago when Australia’s first genuine water park opened at Oxenford.

Todays it’s known worldwide as Wet’n’Wild but in 1984 it went by a different name.

The Cades County Water Park was announced in 1983 and construction began in the middle of that year.

Cades County during its early years when it only had a handful of attractions.

Work was completed by September 1984 and it opened on October 20.

It was created to be part of a 300ha residential development called Cades County in which between 1500 and 2000 homes were planned.

Technicians from the US were brought in weeks before the launch to test the wave pool, the only one of its kind in the country at the time.

The 66m by 33m pool was one of the original attractions at the park, which included the famous speed slide, the four-slide White Water Mountain, the Twister and Rampage, a toboggan ride later known as the Double Screamer.

The centrepiece was Matilda, the giant kangaroo which had become an icon of the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane.

But the water park, as originally envisaged, was only meant to be one part of a multi-precinct theme park.

Cades County water park, later known as Wet’n’Wild

The remainder of the land owned by the developer, Herringe Research and Development Ltd (HRD), was to contain an alpine lodge and chairlift, resort-style accommodation, with facilities for tennis, golf and horse riding, lakes of 5ha and 35ha, a shopping centre and lease areas for operators of other forms of entertainment.

Of course none of these things came to be.

HRD Leisure marketing manager Kim Smith announced just days before the grand opening that the ribbon would be cut by then-Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

“I hope he brings his swimming costume because there is a lot of fun to be had here,’’ Mr Smith said.

“Tomorrow we are simply opening the gates and we are confident of a very successful weekend.”

The opening was considered a great success but there were soon storm clouds on the horizon.

Matilda being installed at Cades County. Supplied photo.

Receivers took control of HRD in 1985 and closed the water park in June the same year.

But three months later the management of the water park was taken over by PRD Leisure, the operators of Jindalee’s Amazons Water Park.

The park reopened in September 1985 and a year later was bought by company Ariadne Australia.

In the late 1980s it was renamed Cades County Wet’n’Wild before Ariadne sold off its holdings.

In late 1988 Village Roadshow bought the park and the land that had once been earmarked for the Cades County housing development and began building another theme park – Warner Bros Movie World.

The park underwent several major expansions in the 1990s and 2000s as it grew in size and added a range of new attractions, including the SkyCoaster, Surf Rider, Super 8 Aqua Racer, Mammoth Plunge and the Speed Coaster.

Virtually all of these slides and rise have long since been decommissioned, replaced by more modern attractions which continue to delight audiences 40 years after gates opened.