Local Parks’ Temporary Additions

One of my local parks is home to a few native eucalyptus trees that have grown into reasonably sized specimens. Living in the South-Eastern suburbs I often experience what one would call ‘Typical Melbourne weather’. After getting into a rhythm of comfy autumn days a storm appeared on our horizon and along with it, came strong winds, and as a result many of the large Eucalyptus trees were damaged and some even fell over. The sight of seeing such large, once thought ‘structurally sound’ trees now lying along the ground is rather a shock, however not everyone in my neighbourhood would see it as this.

A few weeks went by and two of the enormous trees still lay peacefully along the grass and made for an exciting and wonderful climbing object for many of the kids and families that visit the park.

For the next few weeks I noticed that whilst passing the park, it became normal to see a group of kids playing around and climbing on the large now dead structures. These new additions to the playground seemed rather popular as they brought more kids to this particular park than normal.

One afternoon I heard that the council had been down to assess the removal of the large trees to the disgust of the children. It had created an environment for the kids to muck about in and created a space of endless fun. I myself didn’t want to see the trees go so we made the effort to contact the local council in thought of the children who seemed to not leave it alone during the warm afternoons.

The council failed to contact us back and after a couple of days the two large trees were cut up into pieces and removed from the park. Not surprisingly the park is back to its old self and is merely half as busy as it was when the two Eucalyptus giants were around.