After having a child, visiting a park takes on a whole new perspective. As a single or just married person, all I needed was a table or bit of grass to spread a picnic and/or read a book. Some shady trees, birds singing to me and I was happy.
Then along came Miss A and it became more about swings, slides and softfall (that squishy stuff they put under play equipment these days so that our little precious darlings don’t hurt themselves – or, more likely, so the council doesn’t get sued if someone does happen to hurt themselves). Visibility also mattered more – no good sitting at a great shady spot if you can’t see where the kids are.
But now that she is older, we are less concerned with play equipment and just like to go to new places and see new areas. We’ve found that the kids will have fun running around and playing with whatever they can get their hands on if there is no equipment to entertain them, and really, I kind of like giving them that challenge. (I’m saying ‘them’ because we usually go with friends or family.)
On the weekend Miss A and I spent a fabulous day with some friends, my bestie of 20+ years and her two children. We had such a wonderful day, swimming at their place, out for lunch, visiting a new park then back to theirs for more swimming. The park we went to was Riverheart Parklands at Ipswich. It’s only recently re-opened after the 2011 floods and has had a whole new life injected into it. It’s so very well done and the little details really sparked my interest. The equipment is different and interesting, a big round swing; a very very thick piece of rope to stand on and swing; long tunnel slide that you access by climbing a spiderweb type frame; lots of water play – pumps, water running around rocks, fountains spurting randomly out of the ground; two large fort/cubby houses; big ropes in and around trees for attempts at tree climbing; and much more. But my favourite things were the extras that made it interesting. Like these:
and these
God and Goddess seats – awesome!
We loved this and imagined it to be a magic circle with all directions being watched by the faces on the ‘seats’.
A special place for the fairies to dance and play, yes?
We will definitely be visiting this park again.
