Saw this one all over Facebook and figured we’d check it out on a Saturday afternoon. Aintree, out in Melbourne’s west, still a lot of construction going on around it.
The pods
The centrepiece is a row of huge woven steel and timber pods up on poles, meant to look like bird nests, with slides and rope nets running through them. They’re genuinely big, bigger than most playground structures we’ve seen, and there are those tall dandelion-looking sculptures scattered around on poles that seem to be a running theme through the whole park.
Water play and hidden doors
There’s a big splash pad area with flat rocks you can step across, plus water pumps and channels for the smaller kids to mess around with. Scattered through the park are tree stumps with little doors built into them, open one and there’s a surprise inside, bugs, fairies, that sort of thing.
We had a moment at one of these doors. Our youngest opened one to find some kind of large bug figure inside, and another kid ran over wanting a look too. He told her pretty firmly she had to share, and when she didn’t want to, went to push her. She burst into tears, she’s normally not easily pushed around herself, so it was a bit of a shock. We stepped in and told him he couldn’t push her, and he didn’t back off at all, no hesitation, even with an adult standing right there. Same kid then came over later at a climbing structure and tapped our partner on the arm to move out of the way so he could go up. His family was nearby, older sister who looked like she was used to letting him have his way.
No toilet that we found
We didn’t spot a toilet anywhere on the playground itself, no sandpit either. There’s meant to be one about 100 metres down Hazelwood Drive near the sales office and cafe, worth knowing if you’ve got small kids and don’t want to be caught out.
Getting there and parking
Address is 22 Hazelwood Drive, Aintree 3336. The playground sits right next to the Woodlea display village, so there’s a lot of house-hunting traffic mixed in with playground traffic on a weekend. Parking isn’t generous, half the surrounding land is fenced off for future building, so budget a bit of extra time to find a spot.
Frontier Park, five minutes away
We also swung by Frontier Park on Frontier Avenue, same Aintree pocket, about a five minute drive. Big slides connected by a rope bridge, its own water play area, a basketball court, and actual toilets on site. Kids got through about an hour and a half there versus roughly an hour at Hazelwood, both playgrounds worth the stop if you’re already out that way.
If you’re chasing more all-abilities and nature-play style parks, we’ve also reviewed the Mill Park all-abilities play space.