Where is the best children’s playground in Canberra?

smeeagain said :

John Knight Park isn’t too bad, with a number of different play areas (though the flying fox is defunct) and the playground at Black Mountain Peninsula is also pretty good.

I noticed this morning that the flying fox at John Knight park is back in action. Also ,there is some new equipment being built on the western side of Lake Ginninderra – a huge spiderweb and a long flying fox. Should be great for bigger kids once they are finished.

You didn’t say what side of town you live on but I am very familiar with the playgrounds in Woden/Weston.

The best I can suggest are the three new community parks that have just been built on Heysen St Weston, Rivett Pl in Rivett of course (between the shop and the old school) and Chifley Pl in Chifley. Very new and very colourful. They also are designed to meet Aust standards for public playground structures.

I would always keep an eye out at the older playgrounds as they are designed in a different time and don’t always meet todays standards. The older the equipment, the harder it is to keep it up to scratch and it is always things that don’t easily catch your attention such as head entrapments, exposed bolt heads/threads, general wear etc. I mention this only because places like Kambah Adv Playground is awesome but you need to be more diligent watching your kids. Having said that, the current thinking on playgrounds is that that should be as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible because kids need to test their boundaries and push the envelope to develop properly.

John Knight Park isn’t too bad, with a number of different play areas (though the flying fox is defunct) and the playground at Black Mountain Peninsula is also pretty good.

Weston Park has a great playground. If you don’t mind a drive, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve is superb for the kids – it has an adventure playground with a flying fox, climbing tower, double slippery dips etc. Great family day out.

As a red herring, when I was a kid there used to be these adventure playgrounds in various places around the country with huge slides and flying foxes and climbing structures. Do they still have them anywhere?

threepaws said :

Kambah Adventure Playground on Springbett St.

Clean toilets and BBQ’s, plenty of trees and shade, plenty of parking, the grass is green and well maintained.

Equipment is either new or in excellent condition, suitable equipment for little kids and big kids. Couple of flying foxes, some giant spider-web climbing thingy’s, swings, big slides etc.

They also have a ‘Liberty Swing’ for kids in wheelchairs (accessible only by carers who hold a master key to this type of equipment I believe). Haven’t actually seen anyone using this swing but it’s lovely that it’s there!

It’s such a big playground that buses full of school children on excursions visit almost on a weekly basis.

The slides are bit useless in summer as there is no shade over them… It is a great playground though, but best to go in the cooler seasons.

For little ones, I always loved the ‘castle’ one in Commonwealth park. Not much in the way of play equipment (slide also gets hot in summer – but water to cool it down readily available from the lake) but very cool looking and fires up their imagination.

Also like the one in O’Connor at the end of Hart St. They revamped it, I think last year. Has a ‘spider web’ and I seem to remember there’s a cool swing too, though could be wrong. It’s just a suburban playground in a nice quiet park.

Kambah Adventure Playground on Springbett St.

Clean toilets and BBQ’s, plenty of trees and shade, plenty of parking, the grass is green and well maintained.

Equipment is either new or in excellent condition, suitable equipment for little kids and big kids. Couple of flying foxes, some giant spider-web climbing thingy’s, swings, big slides etc.

They also have a ‘Liberty Swing’ for kids in wheelchairs (accessible only by carers who hold a master key to this type of equipment I believe). Haven’t actually seen anyone using this swing but it’s lovely that it’s there!

It’s such a big playground that buses full of school children on excursions visit almost on a weekly basis.