Kids and the young at heart are cooling off in Bangholme’s new aqua playground.
The Melbourne Cable Park held a soft opening for the inflatable course on Sunday 8 January and is now running 50-minute sessions every hour from 9am to 5pm every day.
Once complete, the Riverend Road water park will also be home to Melbourne’s first full-sized cable water-ski system, a high ropes course and lake space for canoeing, kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding.
The Journal revealed plans for the park, adjacent to the National Watersports Centre (NWSC) on Patterson River, in February 2015.
The company developing the park, Activ, leased a grassed area that the State Government declared surplus to its needs.
Activ managing director Ian Clark said tracks would tow users around the lakes and over obstacles in the same way a boat would, but solar panels would power the cable systems, which each used as much electricity as two washing machines.
Greater Dandenong Council approved the project in August 2015, and endorsed plans for a building permit in May last year.
The underlying water table challenged the Melbourne Cable Park’s progress.
The park could attract 90,000 people to Bangholme each year, Mr Clark told the Journal, and would average about 250 visitors each day.
