Times Gone By: A village of dreams

ONE of this area’s more popular tourist attractions was known as the Woolgoolga Adventure Village.

Located at the western end of Pullen Street, Woolgoolga it was marketed at families.

Former Papua New Guinea schoolteacher turned builder, Mr Trevor Freestone developed it and began construction in 1976. As well as picnic and recreational facilities, it featured child-sized buildings such as MacDonald’s Farm, house of the seven dwarfs and a Papuan New Guinea village.

It had thousands of visitors, with plenty of children having fun imagining and acting out their favourite nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

In 1977 he introduced a train ride at the village and as with all onsite structures, he built it himself.

Powered by a car motor, it consisted of the engine, carriages and permanent circular tracks which went through a tunnel containing a ‘bananasaurus’.

Before its use, however, he had a lengthy wait for it to pass a safety inspection by an engineer and receive licence papers, then later followed up with a spaceship.

By November 1985, badly needing a rest, he put the attraction on the market at $240,000, but it and other properties failed to sell, with poor demand and an oversupply of properties blamed.

It was kept open though it ran at a loss and the sale price dropped to $140,000.

Over the following three years he developed plans to build a miniature space station beside the lake.

Without funds to put his plan into action and having accrued a debt of $55,000, despite around 8000 children visiting each year, he approached Council to subdivide a house block to raise funds.

While the plan was favoured, the process stalled during the preparation of the LEP and with no progress after six months Mr Freestone stated that too much time had passed to save the attraction.

He continued with the subdivision to clear his debts and closed the Woolgoolga Adventure Village, though as the newspaper stated, his two children ‘had the most exciting backyard in the city’.

By Karen FILEWOOD