This historic artefact from the space race still casts a long shadow across Scott’s Park in the western Riverina. Photo: Big4 Deniliquin Holiday Park.
With the Deni Ute Muster fast approaching (2 and 3 October) we’re taking a look back at another classic transportation tribute that has stood in Deniliquin’s ‘Rocket Park’ for almost 60 years.
For kids growing up in regional Australia in the 1970s and 80s, a park with a moon rocket was one of the most anticipated things to encounter on a school holiday road trip.
Back in the days before play equipment was all soft edged plastic, rope and rubber, these towering steel tributes to the space race cast long and exciting shadows over the late 20th century playparks of NSW.
A cross between Flash Gordon’s spaceship and a giant steel birdcage, Aussie kids swarmed across these sky-high monoliths, scrambling up ladders and platforms, leaning forehead first against the bars at the highest point and imagining ourselves launching into space.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – zero – Blast Off!
Concussions, cuts, breaks and bruises were all part of the adventure as we navigated splintery hardwood see-saws, red hot witches hat slides and unstoppable steel tube merry-go-rounds, but as councils contended with an increasingly litigious population in the 1990s, the more daring devices began to disappear.
There are now only two of the original 38 rockets that remain in their original location – one in Moree and the other in Scott’s (Rocket) Park in Deniliquin.
John Yeaman’s original design was inspired by a visit to the US in 1961. Photo: Blue Mountains City Council.
The story of the Aussie moon rocket craze dates back to eight years before Neil Armstrong took his “giant leap for mankind” and began with an engineer from the Blue Mountains named John Yeaman.
Yeaman was travelling through the United States at the height of the Cold War in 1961, the year that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer space aboard Vostok 1.
Not to be outdone, the Americans had their own astronaut, Alan Shepard, in space less than a month later and President John F Kennedy officially committed the US to landing on the Moon before the decade was out.
Yeaman was fascinated by the space-themed playground equipment he saw popping up in parks across America, and when he returned to his job with Blackheath Council in the Blue Mountains, he began drawing up plans of his own.
The first rocket was installed at Blackheath Soldiers’ Memorial Park in 1962 and the design was taken up by another local metalworker and engineer named Dick West.
Deniliquin’s rocket was delivered to Scott’s Park in 1968. Photo: Deniliquin and District Historical Society.
Deniliquin’s 9-metre-tall rocket landed in the Western Riverina by truck in 1968 and originally boasted two slippery slides and ladders linking each of the four decks.
According to the Deniliquin and District Historical Society, one slide was later removed and the holes leading to the upper decks were sealed off after a child became stuck.
Today, the decks are reopened for a new generation to enjoy along with a couple of other classic pieces built by West in the 1960s including an elephant slippery slide and a carriage.
The Deniliquin rocket and the recently heritage-listed example in Moree are believed to be the only two of West’s rockets still standing in their original NSW locations.
These iconic steel rockets remain as a tangible relic of the space age and a reminder of how profoundly the race to the Moon captured the imaginations of Aussie kids.
