Speelpark Oud Valkeveen, or Play Park Old Valkeveen, got its name from the 400-year-old
Valkeveen farm that was on this land. Situated about an hour's drive from Amsterdam, this small park sits on the
south shore of the Gooimeer (Gooi Lake). People began visiting the Gooi Beach in the 1870s. A playground and
pancake house were added around 1930. The beach and land where the park sits have remained unchanged, but the area that the park's beach
faces has gone through dramatic changes. The massive Zuiderzee Works (Zuiderzeewerken in Dutch) used dams and dikes to control
a shallow inlet of the North Sea and reclaimed over 150,000 hectares of land. In the 1950s and 1960s, the area north
of this park was filled in with land and the South Fevoland was created. The park still sits in a secluded forest, and it also includes
a large indoor play area where children can play during bad weather.
A small "Big Apple / Wacky Worm" coaster called Achtbaan ran at multiple locations at the park from
around 2005 until 2012. It later ran as Roller Coaster at Fun Zone in Bray, Ireland from 2014 until that park's
closure in 2018. Another small coaster, which was nearly identical to the older version, ran here from 2013 to 2018. It was also
called Achtbaan. For about a year before it ran here, it operated as Achtbaan at the nearby
Kinderstad Heerlen indoor park. Since 2021, it has been running as Wattwurm at the
Land & Leute Erlebnishof Dithmarschen in Oesterwurth, Germany.
