Gumbuya World to rival Gold Coast theme parks with new roller-coasters
Victoria’s biggest theme park is set to rival the Gold Coast’s parks with two new roller-coasters in a massive expansion.
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Thrillseekers will soon speed along at more than 100km an hour and face the kind of G-forces F1 racers endure as Victoria’s biggest theme park gets even bigger.
A pair of new roller-coasters will push Gumbuya World into the territory of Dreamworld and Movie World on the Gold Coast, with one of the fastest rides in the nation.
And after last month splashing $2.6m on a 44.5ha rose farm next door to the attraction southeast of Melbourne, the operators’ total landholdings have reached an enormous 287ha — believed to be the biggest landmass owned by a theme park in the nation.
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The Australian Amusement Leisure and Recreation Association (AALARA) this week confirmed the Gold Coast’s biggest attraction, Dreamworld, only covers about 54ha, less than a fifth of the 287ha Gumbuya World now owns in Tynong North.
They also confirmed the faster of the two new roller-coasters would be among the speediest roller-coasters in the nation at 105km/h — though still outpaced by Movie World’s 115km/h DC Hypercoaster.
Gumbuya World chief executive Ron Weinzierl said the new coasters, worth a combined $40m, were just weeks away from opening.
Mr Weinzierl said the new rides would bring their total to 13, in addition to a zoo and other nature experiences that were part of a broader plan to lure tourists to Victoria that would ramp up as the 2032 Brisbane Olympics approach.
They include a 46m-high Project Zero, which will have riders pulling up to 5gs, and a more family-friendly attraction named TNT that will hit speeds up to 67km an hour along its 453m length.
“These coasters makes us the leader in the theme park industry here in Victoria,” Mr Weinzierl said.
“And on land size we are the biggest theme park in Victoria, if not Australia.
“We are now competing up against those leading theme parks on the Gold Coast.”
LJ Hooker Pakenham’s Sam Paynter brokered the latest acquisition and said Gumbuya was also now competing with the biggest dairy farms in the region, and that any expansion to the theme park was a “massive boost for the area”.
“They’d be up there as one of the biggest landholders in the area, without a shadow of a doubt,” he said.
Mr Weinzierl said the eco-friendly theme park, which is involved in a number of conservation projects including efforts to re-establish the critically endangered mountain pygmy possum, was considering renewing some of the latest acquisition to suit native wildlife once the rose farm currently operating at it reaches the end of its lease in seven years.
“It’s an opportunity to make sure that nature and the fauna on the site stays the way it should,” he said.
“We now have 660 acres (287ha) to be developed alongside the community in as far as what we do and what we put here.”
Gumbuya World’s wildlife attractions are expected to get a lift in the near future, having recently added a tree kangaroo from Taronga Zoo, they’re now investigating bringing in meerkats and monkeys.
The park had its busiest ever February earlier this year, but new rides are expected to bring in the biggest crowds yet with up to 5000 people on peak days over summer and total visitors as high as 500,000 a year.
“I figure it will be our hottest summer yet,” Mr Weinzierl said.
Gumbuya World replaced Gumbuya Park in 2018 and with the completion of its new roller-coasters will conclude the third stage of a five-phase masterplan to overhaul it.
Phase four is expected to deliver accommodation, most likely eco-friendly spaces.
“The goal is that people will come down, spend a day at Gumbuya and then the next day go to a winery or Phillip Island,” he said.
Mr Weinzierl added the attraction was already expecting a “bonanza” when Brisbane hosts the Olympics, and Gumbuya World would be among the attractions working to lure international crowds to Victoria.
An AALARA spokesperson said the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane presented “amazing opportunities” for the wider theme park industry and that they were working with the federal government towards a “bright and exciting journey” to the international event.
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