Amelia Draws

This is the heritage listed and iconic Benalla Rocket Ship Slide. It is a piece of play equipment set in the beautiful rose gardens of the rural Victorian town, Benalla

The red and yellow 1960’s structure is a relic of postwar Australia, when space and the space race dominated our collective imaginations. When every little heart wanted to be an astronaut.

I played on this slide often in my childhood and my children played on it often in theirs. Children from all over Victoria and across generations have traveled to space in this rocket ship.

It’s a formidable piece of play equipment. The metal slide and the brutal Australian sun is a blistering combination, quite literally. The structure is a massive 8 metres high and many, many children have been stuck at it’s peak. Including my children.

Normally this wasn’t such an issue. They had a lot of experience in the rocket ship. Even at their tender ages of 5 and 3 they were competent climbers. A bit of coaxing called from the ground would generally work, or if need be, you climbed up a little way and helped them down.

However, on this particulr spring day the park was very busy, the rocket crowded and I was sporting a seven month’s large pregnant belly.

The rocket is shaped using a cage of metal bars and had three platforms that were accessed via a short ladder with a small circular hole to the level above as you. Each level packed with kids and in matching green jackets, my two up the top

I squeezed through the first circle entrance and crawled along the first platform to the ladder, climbed then squeezed my belly up the next hole. I did this one more time, dodging and apologising to the kids I had to jostle out of the way.

When I got to the top I found my little children, overhelmed by the crowd. Not crying, but on the cusp of it.

Hugs and gentle words were given and the moment was soothed. We had to coax and gently bully our way down through the throngs of happy kids but the last stage was impossible. Which left the slide as our only way to get out.

They were each too scared to go down the slide alone as I would not be at the bottom to catch them. So, we decided to do it together.

That is how I found myself perched at the top of a very slippery slide in a very slippery polyester skirt, shoes without grip, large and pregnant and two little kids stacked on my lap all of us feeling a bit nervous.

“You two ready?”

“Yes Mum”

“Ok I am letting go”

And we slid. Shot down the slide at rocket speed. Down at such an incredible pace that I was unable to stop us at the bottom which meant we launched off the end of the slide, into the air.

Flew past the landing pad until we landed with a giant thud 2 metres away from the slide. Mostly all upright and in good shape except for my bottom which had felt the complete impact of our landing.

The crowd who had watched in quiet, nervous amazement rushed to help the kids and pregnant me up. Then they applauded and then we laughed.

Heaps of people across the decades have shared laughter at the rocket slide but maybe not for this sort of spectacle. This moment may have been a first in its long history.

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