This 1/40th scale Ayers Rock was, by most measures, a full-scale failure. Poorly constructed and awkwardly located, the undersized Uluru was designed to offer an authentic outback experience, but instead presented an insight into the dark underbelly of Big Thing culture.
The Rock fell into disrepair shortly after construction in the early ’90s, becoming the butt of jokes for generations of travellers along the Pacific Highway. Mercifully, perhaps, he was engulfed in flames in 2018, bringing to an end one of the weirdest Bigs ever.
It was only after the final embers had died out, and the charred skeleton of this roadside oddity was left to fester in the hot Australian sun, that many people realised what they’d lost. Whether they loved him or loathed him, The Rock at North Arm Cove was a part of so many people’s lives.
This, dear readers, is the tragic story of The Rock.
Between a Rock and a hard place
We have the Leyland Brothers to thank for this quirky attraction. For non-Aussies, Mike and Mal were a couple of lunatics who raced around the country bothering animals, recording their reactions, then putting it on television.
(For the younger folks, television is how us boomers killed the empty hours of our lives before Tik Tok came along.)
The boys pooled their TV money to open Leyland Brothers World in 1990, with The Rock as its centrepiece. Whilst I’ve always been fond of it, this lovable lump was never a close reproduction of the real deal. It was little more a mesh shell shaped a bit like Uluru and blasted with concrete, but its dodginess was always part of the appeal.
Disappointingly it wasn’t possible to climb to the top of The Rock, but that might’ve been a land rights issue.
There was also a 1/40th scale Sydney Harbour Bridge on site, which I believe is still standing and shouldn’t be confused with the Mini Harbour Bridge down in Sydney. That’s about all there was to a park labelled ‘the Crappiest Place on Earth’ by detractors. Things were about to get very rocky indeed.
Love is not in the Ayers
Kiddies were hardly bouldered over by the park’s olde-timey moviehouse that played Leyland Brothers documentaries on repeat. The museum, whilst boasting an impressive collection of Mal’s safari suits, was never going to drag them away from their Game Boys.
It was, perhaps, a tactical error to build a fun park without any fun. Leyland Brothers World was also in a poor location; North Arm Cove is a remote spot three hours north of Sydney, meaning it was too far for day trips, with little tourist infrastructure nearby.
Dwindling patronage and the Brothers’ bankruptcy was inevitable. It seemed nobody wanted to travel all over the countryside to Leyland Brothers World.
The Park was sold in 1992 for just $800,000 – a fraction of what the boys had put into it. A few years later, the site was bought by the Great Aussie Bush Camp, with thousands of lucky schoolkids struggling through their nutritionally-bereft meals within The Rock’s rotting carcass.
I was one of those children, and The Rock offered brief respite from the constant bullying I was subjected to after wetting the bed on my first night of camp. But still, look how happy I was in that photo up top – couldn’t you just pinch my chubby cheeks!
Mike and Mal never spoke again. Mike passed away in 2009, having never resolved his differences with his brother or returned to The Rock. When I contacted Mal for his opinion on his bonkers Big Thing, he made it clear this was something I shouldn’t ask a Leyland Brother.
If you smell what The Rock is cooking
When The Rock burnt down on July 31 of 2018 due to an electrical fault, the story led news bulletins across Australia. The inferno dominated social media, and many who hadn’t stopped by in years turned up to leave flowers by his side. We truly don’t know what we have until it’s gone.
Today there’s little sign of The Rock, with no memorial to signify what was and will never be again.
For years I loved to tell people I’d spent the afternoon with my good mate The Rock. They’d inevitably assume I’d been on a man date with one of my brawny Hollywood buddies, and would be shocked but impressed when I told them I’d actually been with a scale replica of the world’s largest and most culturally-significant inselberg.
That joke doesn’t work as well these days, and not just because of my very public falling out with Dwayne Johnson. It’s a little thing, I guess, but like so many Australians I find myself looking back fondly on The Rock.
I miss my big, bumpy friend. He was audacious, ludicrous, ugly, beautiful and divisive. The subject of ridicule and admiration in equal measure, he was the best and the worst of Aussie culture all wrapped into one goofy ball. There’ll never be another like The Rock.
And now he’s gone.
