The Big Rocking Horse at Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills from 1980 a lure for visitors to wooden toy factory
The Big Rocking Horse was built to attract motorists on Torrens Valley Road to a wooden toy factory, wildlife park and cafe at Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills owned by the Wilkinson family since the early 1970s.
The Big Rocking Horse in the Adelaide Hills town of Gumeracha made the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s biggest, although, being set in 80 tonnes of concrete, it didn’t rock.
Set on a former potato farm and fruit-glazing factory site, the Big Rocking Horse was built to attract motorists on Torrens Valley Road to a wooden toy factory, wildlife park and cafe owned by the Wilkinson family since the early 1970s. The first attempt by Graeme Wilkinson to grab motorists’ attention was a wooden giraffe about five metres high. This was subsequently replaced by a series of rocking horses: a three metre tall horse gave way to a five-metre model, before the Big Rocking Horse at 18.3 metres and 17 metres long.
The $100,000 biggest horse was designed by David McIntosh Taylor and it was opened in 1981 after eight months of fabricating by Hallweld Engineering in Adelaide. The steel frame was transported by road to Gumeracha, where steel cladding was attached to the 25 tonnes structure. Stairs inside the rocking horse led to viewing platforms at the head, on the saddle and on the "rocker bows" near the base.
The Big Rocking Horse remained under Wilkinson family’s ownership for just over 20 years. Although the rocking horse stayed structurally sound, a fall in 1999 and the change in liability insurance premiums forced the site to be closed of the site to the public in 2001. Before then, visitors had been able to ascend to a lookout tower on the head of the structure. In 2003, Graeme Wilkinson placed the toy factory, including the Big Rocking Horse, on the market, for about $900,000. It was sold in 2004 to Anthony Miller, who’d emigrated from South Africa in 1999.
Under Miller, the the rocking horse structure was restored and reopened to the public, with visitor access to the viewing platforms available from April 2004. Changes made by Miller, including the reopening of the Big Rocking Horse and removing entrance fees to the associated wildlife park, with its emus and kangaroos, saw visitors to the complex increase from 65,000 in 2003 to 200,000 in 2006. In 2009, the business was bought by Frans and Lyn Gous, also from South Africa.
In 2013, the rocking horse was closed for about three months for extensive work to bring it up to modern safety standards. Grad Zivkovic from Automotive Safety Engineering did all the engineering design required at no charge and Rob Fleming did the steel construction.
