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!
Felicity Banks 
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