Big Splash: closed and dry on 16 December. Photo: Cassandra Summer, Canberra Notice Board Group, Facebook.
Just as the heat of summer really gets beating, one of Canberra’s major pools appears to have vanished off the face of the earth, and the former owner of the Phillip Pool has a theory.
Big Splash, a waterpark off Catchpole Street in Macquarie, was originally meant to open on 30 November, according to a post to its Facebook page earlier this year.
However, it warned its famous slides would be out of action for the whole season due to “major works including upgrading the filtration systems on them”.
The last everyone heard was on 25 November, when another post said, “We will be open for the school holidays, but it won’t be for a couple of weeks. Opening date will be up soon”.
But firmly into the first week of holidays for the ACT’s public schools and the site remains closed and the pools dry.
The phone number is also disconnected, and the Facebook page is gutted of all original posts. The website simply reads “under maintenance” (followed by “website with tickets coming soon”).
Attempts by Region to reach the owners by email over the past couple of weeks have been met with no reply.
Canberra’s other seasonal pools, such as those in Dickson, Phillip and Manuka, have all been open for well over a month now and will stay that way until well in March 2025.
Posts from the Big Splash Waterpark Facebook page have since been deleted. Photo: Screenshot.
The absence of Big Splash is causing no shortage of bafflement from the community.
“Can anyone tell me what’s going on with Big Splash Waterpark?” one person asked on the Canberra Notice Board Group Facebook page this week.
“I went on the website and it’s under maintenance, also looks closed still anytime I drive past. Will it be opening this summer?”
And that was only the beginning of a series of posts, all asking the same question.
Water, water … really not anywhere. Photo: Cassandra Summer, Canberra Notice Board Group, Facebook.
The waterpark originally opened in the late 1960s as Macquarie Swimming Pool, comprising a 50-metre outdoor pool with a kids’ section at one end. Water slides came along in the early 1980s.
The government then sold it in the ’90s to Ron Watkins, who renamed it and brought the total number of slides up to 11 with additions like the ‘Kamikaze Slide’ (that runs down from the top of ‘Splash Tower’), the ‘Hurricane Twins’, and a children’s area called ‘Splash Island’.
In 2010, Watkins bought the old ‘Speedcoaster’ and ‘Twister’ slides from Wet’n’Wild on the Gold Coast for $1.5 million, and after some issues with red tape, installed them in 2013.
Watkins retired after the site’s lease changed hands to Translink Property Management in 2021, registered to 6 Kuhn Place in Nicholls, a five-bedroom house recently listed for sale for nearly $2 million.
Documents from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) show Translink is still trading as normal.
However, John Raut, who managed the Phillip Swimming and Ice-skating Centre for more than 40 years, suspects its owners have now been overwhelmed by the level of maintenance required.
“It’s stuffed,” he told Region.
“Phillip Pool, compared to Big Splash, is in mint condition … It’s not that they don’t make money – we never made any money from Phillip Pool in 43 years – while they turned enormous revenue out of Big Splash.
“It’s a person who’s bought the place with no background in the industry, and when you have no background in the industry, a pool costs a lot of money to operate.
“It now needs a big input of funds, and I don’t think there would be monetary return if they did invest the money that is required. The reality of outdoor facilities in Canberra is that they’re great for 12 weeks of the year, and then they’re vacant blocks.”
The way it used to be at Big Splash. Photo: Big Splash Waterpark, Facebook.
Meanwhile, the Canberra Liberals have drawn “some pretty obvious parallels” between Big Splash and “what was happening at the Phillip Pool in the lead-up to its sale to property developers in recent years”.
“Maintenance work on outdoor pools, water slides and general facilities is becoming harder and harder to perform for the operators of these facilities, and it is the community that loses out,” Shadow Minister for Planning and Environment Peter Cain said in a statement.
The Liberals argue that without help from the ACT Government, Canberra’s outdoor pools will be lost.
“Summer in Belconnen will be poorer for not having access to Big Splash and the wonderful activities that it offers to residents and visitors, especially children. It would be a tremendous shame if we lost that forever.”
Region attempted to contact Ron Watkins.
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