Bathurst Aqua Park set to return to Chifley Dam in November, 2023

The inflatable water park has become a popular summer attraction at Chifley Dam since its first year in 2018, and the owners of the facility are looking forward to making their return.

At this stage, the park is slated to open on November 25, 2023.

Each year, owner Michael Hickey aims to shake up the look of the park, and this season could see the biggest changes yet.

"We've got new equipment, so we'll set the park up completely different this year," he said.

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The aqua park has faced challenges outside of the owners' control since it started coming to Chifley Dam, including low water levels, blue green algae outbreaks, flooding, vandalism, and the disappearance of a swimmer, whose body took weeks to recover, that closed the dam.

However, the Hickey family remains committed to Bathurst and is hopeful the 2023-24 season will be the best yet.

"It's got to get better," Mr Hickey said with a laugh.

In an effort to improve the season, new water quality testing will be implemented.

This follows issues in the 2022-23 season where the park was forced to close due to high levels of blue green algae in the dam.

Mr Hickey took issue with this, as the red level alert was based on water samples that were weeks old at the time of declaration.

To combat this, the park will be permitted to conduct more regular testing to guide its operations.

"We got the green light for it, so we're going to be doing our own testing this year," Mr Hickey said.

"We've got a machine that will turn up this year. While the water is good, we'll just run with it, but if we can see anything change in the water we'll start testing daily, and we'll post our results daily as well.

"I think that's going to be a big plus."

In more good news, there have been plenty of bookings for the aqua park ahead of its opening date.

It's filling the owners with optimism for the season ahead.

"I think it's going to be a good year," Mr Hickey said.

"It's supposed to be a bit warmer this year. We've got bookings already for schools, quite a few bookings actually.

"We're just looking forward to the normal stuff and hope we have a good year."

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