A royally good time: climb and fall of Christchurch’s Qeii Fun Park

In the 1980s and 90s one of the funniest places in Otautahi was an amusement park, which was named after the reigning monarch. Danica Bryant visits the home of Driveworld, Cloud 9, a large labyrinth and other attractions.

Queen Elizabeth II may not have loved roller cocketers, but in New Zealand we still built them. For the families Christchurch families, the name Queen Elizabeth II triggers Fun Park – Qeii short – probably lively memories of dangerous mines, wild bumper cars and temporary excavation points. And although the Qeii -Fun Park is long over today, there is still a lot of fun to remember this iconic attraction.

Qeii did not start as a refuge for Thrillseeker, but for international athletes. In preparation for the 1974 British Commonwealth games from 1974, a brand new sports stadium was built in New Brighton, Christchurch. The named after the head of the Commonwealth, who visited during its opening, originally housed the Qeii Stadium, a career and a cricket floor.

After the games, the stadium became a popular music organizer in which legendary acts such as David Bowie, AC/DC and Beach Boys were organized. When the Qeii complex became only more popular, the Christchurch Council took over the way to growing out.

Until 1980 they had deleted a rental agreement with the pleasure care, Colin Wood, a tenant to operate a small attraction called Driveworld. At Driveworld, families were able to take model machines for a shooting around a sham building, combined entertainment with the earth with earth movement.

Driveworld was in particular Wood’s unique original attraction, The Rollerballs. Rolling aluminum cages attached to tricycle motorcycles ensured an unpleasant but exhilarating driving experience. After the guests tested the prototype at Driveworld, Wood sold the design to a Japanese company that has developed an arena for her own version.

The successful opening of Driveworld forced the advice to expand the surrounding country of the stadium in a full -fledged amusement park. The Qeii -Fun Park to independent amusement rooms, which was opened in 1983 in addition to the existing pools.

In contrast to most of its competitors, Fun Park worked more like a carnival than a permanent park. The patrons bought individual tickets instead of paying a unique entry fee. This meant that they could freely explore the park without driving or alternatively use of several ticket offers if they tackled every attraction.

Most of the Qeii -Fun Park focused on the appeal to families. The guests were able to run around in the mini golf, struggle for the Dodem and bumper boats, in a two -story labyrinth, in the nearby Paterson Brothers Tirs Shop, or explore a huge slide and big swing.

The Supercat mascot also visited the site as a walkabout character. Although the Supercat had a remarkable resemblance to Sylvester from Looney Tunes with its big red nose and his black and white fur, he only looked outside the brand to present Qeii unique.

But the most memorable attraction of the park was undoubtedly Cloud 9, also known as Minecoaster that is out of control. This Stahl -Shuttle coaster opened in 1985 was a simple but powerful animal. The Chain Lift Hill dragged the drivers back before dropping them directly into a singular loop, and then the cycle was repeated. It might have been a gimmick, but what a gimmick it was in little old New Zealand. Cloud 9 was not only the first and only a coaster who worked on the South Island, but it was also the country’s first inverting coasters to turn his head up a year before the end of Rainbow at the end of 1986.

The construction process of Cloud 9 is largely a puzzle-es there is no records of established companies that build the giant, which indicates that the owner Bill Fingnerty actually built it internally. This type of private building is incredibly rare in modern coasters due to high costs and the extreme difficulty of inexperienced builders who adhere to security standards. The only potential connection from Cloud 9 to an official Coaster Company is a Zamperla train that lives back with Nordinsel -Business -Mahons. This can be the abandoned vehicle of the coasters.

Unfortunately, the lifespan of Cloud 9 was short and extremely worried. While most of the coasters had been properly renovated for several decades, Cloud 9 achieved barely four years in the stand. The rumor claims that the coaster did not meet the safety regulations, whereby the guests in the wind report the journey with one side to the side, but there is no difficult evidence for it. What is certain is that the advice of neighbors suffered constant noise complaints that were overwhelmed by the root of the coasters when his screaming riders raced down the route.

In order to reduce the sound, the Finnery Cloud 9s neutered thrill around 1988 by removing its loop. With almost no photographic proof of this second layout, it is unclear whether the Finnerty turned the coast into a spike in which Riders distributed between two ramps or just a steep hill. Regardless of this, the coaster was decidedly less exciting without her central element. But it was even worse as it was as before and led to Cloud 9 in 1989.

Nevertheless, the Qeii -Fun Park worked successfully in the 90s. At that time, Richard Smit took over the possession of the Driveworld section and worked from the owner up to the owner. But at the turn of the century, Driveworld and Fun Park generally had the impossible challenge of the council to develop the neighboring pool complex. They found that the initial 25-year rental agreement of Fun Park 2005 was not renewed over the end of the end after the end, and quickly bought remaining attractions to make room for the new pools.

Big players such as the mini golf and bumper boats were the first. The playground structures and food kiosks soon followed the example. Driveworld survived most of the park and hoped to act until the end of the rental agreement, but the income was quickly dried out due to the lack of sights, which caused complete closing in July 2000.

Mahon’s delights bought the Dodemems, but they sat left for many years before they were in front of the scrap pile due to their age. Private buyers have falsified many objects such as the vintage cars, while the labyrinth hit the most common fate, chopped in wood and sold to the locals for their personal projects.

Despite the big plan of the council for the newly developed swimming complex, the fresh design of QEII would not take long. Although the pool and the stadium survived the earthquake of Christchurch in 2010, the next catastrophe in 2011 damaged them beyond the repair. The demolition of the remains of Qeii started in August 2012 and made space for two individual gender schools, which were opened in 2019.

However, the entire Qeii -Fun -Park is not lost -in a miraculous way, some attractions survive to this day. The bumper boats and the sack slide made their way to the Nelson Fun Park by Tāhunanui Beach. Richard Smit from Driveworld runs his mini jeeps on A&P shows and the annual Christchurch Easter show and he adheres to parts of the trucks and excavators and is gradually documenting his repairs on these historical objects with his. Driveworld Facebook page.

Although the Council has reopened the gym in 2018 and the swimming complex as a relaxation and sports center Taiora Qeii, this reveals thousands of park guests through the Facebook groups of Christchurch today, which are nostalgically for the amusement park as the real main event. They remember the burns that they suffered at the huge slide at night, the epic showdowns between parents and children on Raceway or the mini golf and bumper boats of their childhood stem. Qeii may be over for a long time, but the memories continue to live.