- Title
- 'Don't by-pass Gosford': the car, the Australian Reptile Park and the promotion of tourism on the New South Wales Central Coast, 1959 - 80
- Creator
- Cushing, Nancy; Markwell, Kevin
- Relation
- 9th Australasian Urban History/Planning History Conference. Seachange: New and Renewed Urban Landscapes: 9th Australasian Urban History/Planning History Conference Proceedings (Caloundra, Qld 3-5 February, 2008)
- Relation
- http://www.usc.edu.au/University/NewsEvents/Events/2008
- Publisher
- University of the Sunshine Coast
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2008
- Description
- When the Australian Reptile Park was on the verge of closure in the early 1980s, its founder and director, Eric Worrell, wrote a vindication of his park. Worrell discussed the important role of the park in the production of venom, primarily that of snakes and funnel web spiders but also of other creatures such as wasps and blue ringed octopus, which were used for life saving anti venoms. He told how venom from the Park was sent to research institutions around the world, of the positions of authority he held and of the Imperial and national honours he had received. In addition to this scientific contribution, Worrell claimed that his Australian Reptile Park was also important as the first man made tourist attraction on the Central Coast. He ended with a challenge, ‘What do Central Coast people want as the future of the Australian Reptile Park?’ Worrell was a desperate man, fighting for the park which was his boyhood dream, his home and his livelihood. He hoped to garner popular, political and economic support for the Australian Reptile Park by drawing attention to its many contributions. While we are treating his broader claims in our larger project, this paper will focus on his assertion that the Australian Reptile Park played a key role in the development of tourism on the Central Coast. It will be argued that Eric Worrell and the Australian Reptile Park were indeed at the forefront of the rapidly emerging car-based ‘drive tourism’ of the 1960s and 1970s.
- Subject
- tourism; Gosford, NSW; Australian Reptile Park; Australian tourism industry; car-based tourism
- Identifier
- uon:5917
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/44928
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780980474404
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