REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Thursday, January 24, 1974

FOR Gold Coast audiences of the mid-1970s, monorails seemed like the way of the future.

Sea World unveiled multimillion-dollar plans for a monorail around its theme park as part of a major expansion of its facilities.

The H-Bahn-style suspension railway was part of plans which were set to roll out over a 12- month period into 1975.

The Bulletin revealed Sea World’s bosses were in negotiations with Disney.

Other features of the proposed park expansion were a 200ft Skytower, “Puffing Billy” style railway and 400ft flume ride.

The flume ride, with its initially proposed name of “ruba-dub-dub” was hoped to take children through a series of education exhibits.

The flume ride was eventually realised as the Viking’s Revenge and still operates at the park today.

Ultimately a monorail was finally built at the park in the 1980s in a design similar to that used at Expo ‘88, in Sydney and eventually at Broadbeach.

Today the Sea World track remains Australia’s last operational monorail following the closure of the Broadbeach’s in early 2016.

Meanwhile, a 19-year-old unemployed Melbourne musician, Lionel John Davey masqueraded as a member of the Lovelace Watkins Show and then asked police to investigate the theft of more than $1820 of musical instruments which did not exist.

He admitted to Southport Magistrates Court he was already facing perjury charges in Victoria. He was fined $39.41.