Like me, many kids who grew up in Perth would find in the darkest recesses of the closets, along with boxes of mismatched lego and Care Bears, a small plush lamb with crazy looking eyes. For the girls, a red ribbon would be perched between it's lamb ears and the boys would have a more manly version sans ribbon. Mine was uninventively called Lamby and contained, within it's furry body, fond memories of a theme park called Dizzy Lamb Park. Legend tells us that the original owners father couldn't pronounce Disneyland correctly, instead saying Dizzy Lamb. So when the time came for the family to open their own mini Australian version of Disneyland, on a sprawling property in the upper stretches of Waneroo Road, the first name that popped into their heads was, of course, Dizzy Lamb Park.
I was very young, say 4 or 5 when I last visited the park, so the extent of my memories of the place is quite limited. So I was surprised when, 21 years later, driving around the perimeter of the now run down park, I found myself recognising things and getting childishly excited. The Statue of Liberty still rose out of the murky looking lake, teeming with giant fish. The old stone benches still sat, now surrounded by bush and the castle turrets peeked over the tops of the trees. A ghostly go-kart track girt by old Streets Cornetto advertising signs graced a large corner of the park and creepy looking play equipment creaked rustily in the wind.
Although it hasn't been running as a theme park for many years now, it has now been taken over by paintballing and laser skirmish company who use the left over castle and theme park infrastructure as a unique paintballing arena. They were kind enough to let us walk around and take some shots of what was left over from the memories stored within my stuffed plush lamb.
Remember this place and want to check it out? Why not go paintballing! Check out their website here. www.castleinvasion.com.au
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