We continue where we left off last week, dipping into the well of water memories.

It was called the “res”, short for reservoir, and one needed to draw on all one’s reservoirs of cunning to access it for a summer’s swim.

The trek out there was formidable in itself.

The res sat high on a ridge, way out behind the numbered avenues of Palm Beach, where the curb and channelling of new estates had begun stretching their tentacles into the fragrant pine forests where we once played war.

We would take our skateboards with us to ride the virgin bitumen as we went – shirts tied around our heads to guard against the beating sun.

Gradually, the shiny black snake-like network of cul-de-sacs would give way to the dusty gravel foundations of ones to follow, and eventually to the original goat tracks worn into the hillside by generations of kids before us.

Like a feudal castle it loomed large as we scampered up the steep and rough terrain – the promise of a refreshing swim injecting just enough energy into our legs to keep us going.

The res was an ominous, open-topped concrete tank, with only a couple of rusty tin sheds housing mystery machinery sharing its commanding post.

A partly grown-over service road ran off the back of the hill to parts unknown and we always kept a vigilant ear in case a truck came rumbling along it.

There was a ladder up the reservoir’s side, closed over by a padlocked gate that could be assailed by the gripping of fingers and toes around the protruding bolts.

Skin was considered a fair price to pay to reach its lofty circumference – a ring of fun and danger that was little more than half a metre wide, and from which we would leap into the green water below. It was best when the res was half full, making for more air time before splashing down in its echoing interior.

Sometimes the large pipe that hooked over the edge of the structure would begin randomly spouting water to refill the tank, making for a thunderous torrent to ride.

Once you hit the water, there was always a rush to swim to the mossy ladder attached to the inside wall and climb frantically from imaginary sewer monsters and the thought of being sucked away.

There was a large grille at the bottom edge on the side where we dared not swim. The leaves and sticks and chip packets we submerged from the wall above, to test if any water was draining, provided only a hint of insurance – so it was always best to make haste.

Thankfully, I suppose, around this time came the advent of purpose-made structures for water recreation, one of the first being the slides at the beach end of Cavill Avenue in Surfers Paradise.

This attraction arrived with much schoolyard hype.

As an endorsement of its immediate impact on popular culture, weird urban legends began to swirl, such as razor blades being stuck to its sides with bubble gum and that some kids went flying out of the slide to the street below because they had formed an illegal chain and were going too fast.

These tales did little, however, to hinder our love affair with paying good money to be propelled down plastic tubing.

Now, massive water-theme parks are sprouting everywhere. Even the car parks of regular theme parks are growing them.

And it was at the newest such establishment that our family, and my brother’s family, found ourselves recently making use of the passes our kids’ grandmother had given them for Christmas.

Walking up the stairs and tiered platforms of the various thrill rides was infinitely easier than scaling the reservoir’s rusted bolts more than a quarter of a century ago, but the surge of adrenaline before taking the plunge was equally intense.

As I am certain park management would have frowned upon the tossing of chip packets, we were fortunate this time around that we had our children to push down first to see if it was safe.

Down they sped, giggling and gurgling, through the treacherous chambers of rides called the Rip, the Green Room and the Cut Snake, emerging at the other end with mouths as wide as Luna Park’s.

Convinced little harm could be done to us, the adults followed all the way back to our own childhoods, only better, because we got to keep our skin.