Playground Tour 2021: 3 in 1
Today we went to the Commonwealth Park Playground, also known as the Castle Playground (by me) and the Mouse House Playground (by some).
It is mostly made up of interconnecting tunnels, making it extremely hard work for parents of clingy toddlers (“Mummy come too!”) but a gorgeous location for those who take way too many photos. In unrelated news, I took eleven photos just of the rocks. Rocks are pretty.
This time, I remembered Lizzie’s tiara.
We parked at CIT (deserted on a Sunday), walked under the underpass (which I hope will have murals painted in it again one day), and turned right towards the Castle.
Here’s Lizzie signing “seven” in Auslan, and looking regal at the top of the slide.
On to Playground #8!
This is Yerrabi Pond Playground, in Gungahlin (and “eight” in Auslan):
Today was super windy again, and cold, and I forgot to bring jackets and beanies. I took a coupla pics and then let Chris run up and down fetching the flying fox while I sat in the car and ate popcorn (which was precisely why we went there on a weekend, with Chris).
Yerrabi Pond Park & Playground is good value, and it’s a real shame we forgot to take our scooters because it has a really good scooter area suitable for beginners.
Now, Questacon was meant to be one of our playground tour destinations, especially as Tim is 6 (for another few months) so only barely young enough to still go into Mini-Q (which is AWESOME) but it turns out Mini-Q is closed until further notice due to covid.
However, the National Zoo and Aquarium has an awesome new playground now, at the very top of the zoo near the rhinos (and rhino bistro) and big park area (which contains this artificial waterfall):
We went to the zoo very recently, with the refugees we’re mentoring (an epic day!)… so here’s Lizzie signing “nine” with as little context as possible.
Here’s a real tiger most definitely daring me to pat it on that gorgeous soft underbelly. . . something I would definitely fall for if there wasn’t major fencing in the way.
Here’s my son casually eating an ice cream while sitting on a giant snake. . .
And here’s a puma patiently waiting for YOUR child to come and play.
The zoo playground is, once again, a little too young for my two, but the animals hidden throughout are incredibly cool, and anyone under 5 (or old enough to be silly again, which the refugees certainly were) will love it. There are several different areas separated by plenty of greenery, so I recommend it for parents willing to either let their kids wander off into the jungle or to chase after them the whole time.
One more playground to go!
Playground Tour 2021: Sculpture Garden
Yes, I know it’s not a playground. At all.
Lizzie is making the Auslan sign for “six”.
I pointed out the National Carillon to Qusay, who already knew what it was since he used to live in Kingston.
My favourite sculpture is this one, because it’s so simple and dramatic and the shapes are so satisfying (as is the noise it makes when you tap on it), plus the contrast of the smooth metal and detailed trees is gorgeous, and all the more so as the natural surroundings reflect in the mirrored surfaces.
We took Qusay (our artist friend from Iraq), who was delighted by the sculptures, and delighted again when the mist sculpture switched on. It put him in mind of European style fairy tales, just as it does for me.
I was so busy filming the mist I forgot to take a photo, but this is a nice screenshot from one of the videos (ignore the scooter, of course).
Lizzie especially liked the sculptures of women:
It was very windy today and I thought it would be awful, but the gardens provided shelter. Tim and I went home while the rest continued into the gallery (which is currently ticketed, although still free except for special exhibitions). OF COURSE Qusay was especially excited excited about the Dali sculpture and abstract artists. Check out some of his work (which is all for sale in his shop, which I run for him).
Playground Tour 2021: Boundless
Boundless is the name of an all-ability playground just up the hill from the bridge to the National Carillon (and yes, you can hear the carillon from the Playground without it being loud enough to be annoying). You have to approach the playground from the correct side of the Kings Ave bridge (heading northeast). Parking for the playground has been expanded and we easily found a spot (a disabled spot).
Boundless is very popular, but also very large. When Tim, Lizzie and I arrived around 11:30 there were probably 100 people there, but it wasn’t crowded. There are only two toilets, but they’re centrally located and since a lot of the kids were young enough to be in nappies the toilets were sufficient. By 12:30 about half the people had gone and it was a lot easier to scan those that were there when I was trying to keep track of my own kids. Most of Boundless has reasonable line of sight, which is handy, and the whole playground is fenced which is GREAT.
There’s a reasonable amount of seating and shade (and lots of picnic tables and even some bbq facilities just outside the fence), but at 11:30 the seating and shade didn’t align so a lot of people were sitting on the (wet) grass in order to be out of the sun.
In our original playground tour, this was #6, after the art gallery as #5, but our scheduled visit to the gallery yesterday was switched to Saturday so Boundless became #5. Savvy?
We’ll also leave out Questacon this time, as the Mini-Q section is closed due to covid until further notice.
I once again struck the issue that it’s difficult to take photos of a crowded playground without accidentally including other people’s kids. Ah well.
As usual, the roundabout (ie the fastest and most dangerous thing in the whole playground) was a favourite for my kids.
This whole playground tour is touched with melancholy, as I am witnessing the end of the ‘playground’ era for my children. Even Boundless didn’t hold them for long (as mentioned elsewhere, climbing frames and flying foxes are what it’s all about at the moment playground-wise).
Tim was very clingy as a baby and I distinctly remember that when he was nine months old he was interested in actually exploring playgrounds for the first time—starting with Boundless.
Yep, that’s my 6 year-old spurning the playground to read a book. A beautiful sight, but a little heartbreaking at the same time.
As usual, Lizzie is more open to enjoying what’s placed in front of her (in this case, a playground) and she made some friends while we were there. As a girl on the spectrum, she often struggles to make friends but tends to instantly connect with kids younger or older than herself. Another shot of melancholy as I remember how easily she made friends as a preschooler (and a baby and toddler). Things were simpler then. At nine years old, she’s on the brink of hitting puberty. A wonderful and terrifying moment. She is so very eager to please and willing to do anything to spend time with me. That is about to change.
In conclusion, this is definitely our last playground tour—and not just because I’m allergic to the outside world. My little ones aren’t little any more.
Those five fingers might as well be waving goodbye.
Playground Tour 2021: The Arboretum
The Arboretum is sprawled across several rolling hills close to Canberra’s heart. It has several monocultural forests of rare and endangered trees, building up a living seed bank. And it is very, very pretty.
The Bonsai and Penjing collection is rightly famous, and that’s where we began our journey, with our refugee friends suitably impressed by both the bonsai art and the stunning views across Canberra. They also explored the Discovery Garden, recognising many plants since Iraq is another somewhat desert-inclined country.
Then the kids went to the playground and I told the Iraqis to go explore on their own, which they did (after, as per usual, unloading food and chocolate on us and the kids).
So how was it?
The Arboretum’s famous Pod Playground is #4 on our list of playgrounds.
And it sucked.
It was super duper crowded, and hot, and noisy. There’s very little shade or seating around the Pod Playground, and the best part of the playground is a single-file journey through several pods and rope tunnels to the top of this epic slide:
The problem, of course, is that it really is single file. And very high. So kids get stuck partway all the time, delaying everyone and being incredibly difficult to extract.
Anyway, here’s Lizzie. Ish. You can see a tiny bit of her hat peeking out from the left-hand pod.
I lost patience real fast and hustled everyone home asap. There was screaming.
Thus endeth today’s journey. Hopefully things go better at the Art Gallery Sculpture Garden (not really a playground, but shut up) this Wednesday.
There’s a 60% chance of rain.
Playground Tour 2021: The Cotter Reserve
The Cotter Reserve Playground is a little young for my kids now, but it was really the river we were there for.
She’s not really rolling her eyes, honest.
When I sat down and looked at the ten playgrounds on my list, I marked four as being interesting to the (adult, childless) refugee couple that we’re currently mentoring as part of the Castle of Kindness Refugee Sponsorship Group. This, being a gorgeous natural setting near the Cotter Dam with lots of great walks in the area, was one of them. So we had our family of four + another family that is joining the Castle of Kindness (and has a toddler with strong opinions) + two Iraqis.
One of the major challenges for this location is that the internet tends to drop out a few kilometres before you get there. That means that GPSes don’t work, and neither does Google Translate (which we rely on heavily with the refugee couple). So it was a relatively complex plan that actually came together rather well. I forgot to check the water quality (which, now that I look at it, was rated yellow—it passed 60%-90% of the time, apparently), but none of us fell over in it so I’m sure we’ll be fine. The Cotter Reserve is a paddling spot rather than a swimming spot.
We took sausages to cook but luckily the others had plenty of yummy food to share because there were heaps of people around and the BBQs were very much taken. The playground was popular too, but I did manage to take this picture of Chris and Tim without bothering to get up from my spot near the water.
The refugees really enjoyed exploring up and down the river, and I had a little paddle myself.
It’s common to see wildlife there (including brown snakes) but there were far too many people today.
Lizzie’s holding three fingers up because this is playground #3 of 10. The next on the list is the Arboretum, which will feature the exact same crowd, an incredible playground, and amazing views across Canberra.
Here are the maps I shared with various people to help us find each other. It’s a big area so we used the playground as a meeting place.
Casuarina Sands (which you can see on the top map, and which we passed on the way) is much better for swimming. So there are lots of ways to enjoy the area, which is gorgeous without being inaccessible.
Felicity Banks 