Tales from the Olympic Park

Last week the children and I had a day out at the newly-opened Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, along with what seemed like half of London! It was a beautiful day - relatively warm sunshine and cloudless blue skies and we had great fun exploring. Undoubtedly the 'best bit' for my two was the water play area in what is known as Tumbling Bay. Shoes and socks were quickly discarded, jeans rolled up as they got stuck into a complicated game of building / destroying dams and pumping water.  What was really lovely was the way in which so many children who'd never met before just joined forces to play - it seemed like there were two teams, one trying to control the flow of the water and the other trying to stop it by building dams.

Once dried off (stupidly I'd forgotten to take a towel so we had to improvise with the clothes that the Little Princess had discarded... we did have spare clothes for her), it was on to the amazing treehouse inspired climbing nets and rope bridges. Jedi Boy was immediately climbing across the nets and making his way up a fairly tricky rope ladder to the top of the tree... I had my heart in my mouth as he slid down the very high fireman's pole, but sometimes you just have to let them get on with it. This is a great playspace for children - it is designed to blend in with the environment without sacrificing any of the fun - and it isn't as 'safe' as some playgrounds seem to be these days. It even has a properly slippery slide!

We had a fabulous day out at the Olympic Park and will definitely be going back there in the future - there was another playground over by the Olympic Stadium which was too busy to explore properly, fountains which will be brilliant fun to splash in on hot summer days, a climbing wall (for over 11s) and plenty of quiet footpaths to explore. I'm looking forward to our next visit already!