Rock The Wob - In Memory Of Wobbies World

The mission? To visit the former site of iconic craphouse Melbourne kiddie-theme park, Wobbies World. The cast? Supermercado Adam, Agent Fare Evader and myself. The outcome? Sweet success, my friends, although I think in the process I may have irritated the other two into oblivion with my constant outbursts of explosive laughter and endless chatter. Ah well.

For me this mission was to be cathartic, as my younger brother the Boy Wonder and I never actually went to Wobbies World as children. I remember begging to be taken because my friends were, and I'd seen how cool the tv ads made it look – the spinny aeroplane, the mini-golf, the mum and kids nearly getting squirted by the fireman’s hose - alright! Unfortunately, it was never deemed a worthy enough activity by our parents, who preferred instead to take us to French arthouse cinema or on lefty protest marches. Meh. To this day the Boy Wonder regrets the fact that he never rode in that plane. Here at last was my chance to make peace! (And if I can have my next birthday party in the playroom at McDonalds, then almost all my childhood demons will be fully exorcised. Yes!)

On Saturday arvo I kissed the Beasts an early goodbye, muttered something evasive to my harder-working and far more dedicated co-Beast Lovers about having ‘things to attend to’ and slipped away from work. On the train I was momentarily distracted by one of the finest mullets in the city. Observe:



Nice, eh?

My appalling sense of direction delayed the kick-off, as I stood lamely on a corner in the CBD yelling into my phone, ‘Where are you? What? How many degrees to my left?’ I finally found the guys parked diagonally across tramlines, alarming passers-by with their manic attempts to gain my attention. Whoops. We motored out of the city and used the Agent’s patented ‘pigeon sense’ to find our way to the site of the Wobby that Was.

At this point, I’d advise you to head over to read Adam’s superior coverage of the expedition. He’s right – at first it seemed a fruitless mission, as we kicked around the outskirts of Wobby territory, complaining that there wasn’t even a decent plaque commemorating the former wonder. Who the fuck cares about the Whitehorse Botanical Gardens? 1.0 got into a bit of Field of Dreams action, hoping that this might bring us some luck, and eventually we found the cyclone wire boundary of Ye Olde Wobbies. We made our way 'round to the roadside perimeter where a faded sign claimed there were ‘guards dogs on site’ (a lie. Also, my ‘Chopper, sic balls!’ crack was lost on these two philistines). Despite what we were to be told later on, there was in fact no sign forbidding trespassing on Wobbie Territory, so when we saw a house adjoining the enclosed section with an easily-climbed side fence, we scrambled over, trying to ignore the horrid yapper-type pet dog in the house’s backyard which went absolutely spastic at us.

Right. The skeletal remains of Wobbies World were now ours to run rough-shod over. Highlights included finding the original canteen pricelist, the mini-golf course (yes, it looks like a bodgy pissing photo, but he truly was pretending to putt), a fading version of the Wobbie elephant, the remaining proof that Wobbies was All Good Safe Fun and some cute food booths which the boys were too pussy sit down in because there was dust on the seats. Bah. Then of course there was the excitement of finding the original Wobbies World sign, which was gratifying, and proved we REALLY WERE in the former Wobbies World and hadn’t just wandered across discarded sets from a Mad Max movie.

We might have got a bit excited about this.





By this point 2.0 and I were getting antsy that the locals might notice us. We took our final photos and headed back to fence. Next thing we knew there was a scary retching/cough-splutter behind us, and we turned to see poor 1.0 nearly spewing his guts up because he'd got too close to an extremely crusty, possibly cholera-infected green pond. But despite looking a bit pale, he grinned and held it together like a man.

As we hopped back over the fence we had a bizarre encounter with a random young guy from the house next door, who had 'just-got-a-fright' spiky blond hair and a suspicious accent (Norwegian? Swedish? Welsh?). ‘We don’t allow trespassers here,’ he said prissily, apparently overlooking the fact that we weren’t technically trespassing on his place anyway. 1.0 muttered that we were already leaving, and (when we were a safe distance away) demanded, ‘Who are you anyway? Wobby?’ On the way back to the car we traded the other ‘witty’ comebacks we wished we’d fired off, including ‘We? Who, you and your spastic yapper-dog?’ ‘What jurisdiction does a suspected foreigner have over an Aussie icon?’ and 2.0’s rather clever call that his accent sounded like Daffyd, the ‘only gay in the Welsh village’ from Little Britain: ‘We dorn’t alooo treeespassers heeyah!’ Well, I laughed.

As far as the company was concerned, I can verify it’s definitely something to hear these two banter away. Melbourne blogging’s answer to the Odd Couple are so consistently funny that around them I turned into that irritating girl from your high school who laughed insipidly at all the boys jokes. At one point I fear I actually stopped walking and slapped my thighs in mirth. I’m not quite sure how I ended up feeling like the dorky little sister of two guys who are both younger than me. Very wrong.

Following a detour to visit Agent's grandma (yes, really) I was dropped home and the Adam's narrowly missed a roadside encounter with Mr and Mrs Jellyfish. My folks peered after the car - 'Who was that?' - but I just smiled, thinking, well - it would all be a bit hard to explain, really.

The Jelly Verdict
Why stop here? Kiddie funtime icons Gumbaya Park and the Giant Earthworm (now with exciting new decomposing Great White Shark in tank!) should surely be next. I’d even push for a mass blogger road-trip up the east coast to visit all the ‘giant’ icons of Australian leisure culture – the Big Banana, The Big Prawn, there’s also a Big Totem Pole somewhere I’m certain. Although without the B & E it mightn't be as much fun.

For those with memories of Wobbies World, I encourage you to post them here. You’ll be helping to record an otherwise overlooked chapter in our great city’s history. 'Cos remember, those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. God forbid. One Wobbies was quite enough.