Today's holiday blog post covers a topic I never thought I would be writing about in conjunction with a holiday to a new, exciting and unexplored location. More experienced parents will think I am foolish, I know, but I never thought that a trip to a place like Alice Springs, which has so many bushwalks, museums and galleries to explore would result in me exploring almost every playground my kids set eyes on (I say almost every playground because we managed to convince them that the playground near our bed and breakfast hotel was not worth visiting).
Playground at the Araluen Cultural Precinct
Every time we reached a new location, my girls would scan the area and then cry, "Look! A playground!" And, as you will see in the last picture, if they couldn't find a playground, they would improvise. Dry and sandy riverbeds make for great giant sandpits, according to my children. And rocky tracks and climbs were a great source of stones to bang together or pretend they were dinosaur eggs, food, or whatever took their fancy!
Simple playground at the Olive Pink Botanic Garden
So, for those of you heading to Alice Springs with young children in the near future, make sure you note down the location of each of these playgrounds. You might find the information very handy! My next holiday post will be about some of the souvenirs we brought home with us.
Miss 4 enjoying the slide at the Old Ghan Heritage Railway and Museum
Miss 2 and my dad playing on the see saw outside the Old Ghan Heritage Museum
Making "cakes" in the mostly dry riverbed leading up to the gorgeous Simpsons Gap
Great post! You're totally right. Little things like playground location mean everything where you have small kids.
ReplyDeletehahaha i remembered 'making cakes' too when i was young!
ReplyDeleteI've so been there! I remember taking the kids to a beautiful park - grass, trees, flowers, river etc. They looked up at me - one with teary eyes - "but you said we were going to a PARK!!" Like you I soon learnt to include playgrounds in our trips (or if not at least make it clear!).
ReplyDeletehi there,
ReplyDeletejust found this as I was doing research for our up-coming trip to Australia. We (including 3 and 5 year old boys) will be visiting Alice Springs first and then caravaning it to Uluru, so we were looking for playgrounds to help expend some cooped up energy from long plane ride from US...thanks for the heads-up and great information! I am also a former scientist and now SAHM!