The tepee duo at the new Taylor nature park. Photo: Astoria Bright.
The fences are coming down on a new ‘nature play’ area in Canberra’s north.
The ACT Suburban Land Agency has been busily carving wood, laying out stones and banking dirt in the back of Gungahlin to create a new back-to-basics play space for the children of Taylor and beyond.
Taylor’s Nature Park and Bike Track opened on Saturday, 23 October.
The Nature Park located on Judith Macintosh Crescent features balancing log trails, loose stones, pebbles, sticks and branches, stepping stones, log floor-crossing, loose rock campfire, loose ‘Roll Me’ logs of different shapes and sizes, and a spiral stepping log trail.
The bike track with its twists and turns. Photo: Astoria Bright.
There is a large wooden tepee tent with a stool log and a small tepee duo near the waterways. Rock wall formations and wooden totem poles lead the way through a small forest.
This will be the third such nature park in the Gungahlin region. The idea behind the relatively new trend is to get kids away from screens and let their imagination and creativity loose in the real world.
The play space also incorporates something for the budding BMX bike rider: an oval-shaped dirt track features wavy bumps, a ‘bermed’ corner, and a series of quick curving turns.
Plain and simple. Photo: Astoria Bright.
An asphalt path encircles the track and makes a safe space for viewers to watch, while a crossing point makes clear that pedestrians give way to bikes.
Family and friends can look on from a hilltop viewing area with stone seats and native gardens.
The SLA says all playgrounds require maintenance to keep them safe and presentable, and this one will be no different.
The treated wood can last a long time without attention, while the bike track has its own maintenance guide to keep it from deteriorating.
Dirt bike tracks are a new addition to several play spaces in Canberra and the two built last year in Farrer and Higgins are still proving very popular.
Eddison Park in Phillip has scored new rock-climbing equipment and fresh mulch. Photo: Astoria Bright.
There have also been upgrades to Eddison Park in Phillip over the past week.
The original grass space in the middle of the fully fenced space has been removed and soft mulch and a large play boulder with various rock climbing grips added.
This is one of 64 minor improvements to existing playgrounds completed so far this year, which includes topping up mulch and soft fall material, as well as general landscaping improvements, repairing and replacing elements that don’t meet safety standards.
Upgrades will be coming to playgrounds in Aranda, Kaleen, Lyons, Chisholm, Gordon and Ngunnawal for 2022. Each suburb will receive either a new playground or upgrades to an existing one, valued at $500,000 per suburb.
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