Newtown playground review: Hollis Park gets a much-needed spruce up
A fenced playground with great equipment (and a cafe nearby!) is the holy grail for toddler parents, especially if there are other siblings in the child-wrangling equation.
Newtown’s Hollis Park ticks a lot of boxes for toddler parents and carers, those with a brood, and even those looking to entertain pre-teens. It was renovated by City of Sydney this year and its new equipment will appeal to a range of age groups.
Fans of Hollis Park will be pleased to know the yellow boat remains, set to take many more years worth of kids on journeys near and far. For the uninitiated, this is a plastic yellow boat on springs, that rocks a little from side-to-side, and was a BIG drawcard for the toddler set during my visit. It’s wonderful for sparking imagination play, as well as meeting new playmates. There’s a couple of other ‘rockers’ nearby too.
My toddler loved using the rock-climbing wall to scramble up the small hill then shoot down the slides. Then back again. And again. There’s one long and one short slide barreling down the hill, and they seem similar in concept to the bank of three slides in the playground at Sydney Park.
My pre-schooler loved the big climbing frame, and the challenge of getting onto the hammock-like platform, balancing on it and then getting it to sway. This will be a big hit with older children.
There are two swings and one is a bucket design for babies and young toddlers.
There’s shade over the swings and slides and some grassy nooks for playground picnics. A good number of bins for the resulting rubbish. And decent seating.
It’s a big improvement on what was there before.
Hollis Park is a great little playground. For a small space, the equipment is varied and will appeal to a range of age groups. My only quibble is the layout. The rockers, including the little yellow boat, are located behind the slides, and not visible from a good section of the playground. I had my preschooler on the climbing frame needing a hand getting down, with my toddler disappearing from view behind the sides, en route to a voyage on the seven seas. One of those wish you could be in two places at once moments! But it really helped that I was there on a playdate with a friend (and her kids), and we could divide and conquer the playground when needed.
Hollis Park, 168 – 184 Wilson Street, Newtown
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