There are your ordinary swings-slide-monkey bars playgrounds of yesteryear – and then there are the ones that seem to have sprung from the imagination of a mad genius with an endless supply of concrete, steel, rubber and chutzpah.
File Frew Park under the latter. Built in 2015 and winner of multiple architecture awards, it occupies the park next to the Roy Emerson Tennis Centre in Milton, which itself was once the Milton Tennis Centre, scene of major tournaments and rock concerts by anyone from the Rolling Stones to David Cassidy. In acknowledgement of this heritage the playground takes the form of a sports grandstand, radically deconstructed. Kids can scramble up the structure via ropes, steel poles and handles to slide back down via super-wide, super-steep slide. (And we mean wide: five or six kids could go down this thing side-by-side.)
Separate sections are joined by tubes of steel mesh and cargo rope. Check out the crazy hanging net next to a trompe-l'oeil mural; the dizzyingly high 'Commentary Box' overlooking the park; and the fast, twisting tube slide taking you all the way back down again. Robot-like bronze statues celebrating tennis and other sports add the overall mood of futurism.
Younger kids can content themelves mucking around on the adjacent ground-level section, which has a strong Yellow Submarine vibe with colourful tubes and trumpets. Picnic tables and barbecues encircle the playground, making it a popular birthday party destination. The tennis centre's six courts and practice wall are right nearby too if anyone fancies a hit.
