Colmslie Reserve is a fantastic free-range children’s playground on the river at the Brisbane suburb of Morningside. We visited the park this morning and enjoyed letting the children run around, exploring the diverse areas of the official children’s playground as well as the riverside walk and sandy beach areas.

The park is within sight of the Gateway Bridges and under a flight path to the airport. It features covered picnic areas, lots of grassy meadows and concrete paths everywhere. The children’s playground area is partially fenced and covers several hilly acres.

The play areas are well shaded by mature trees.

The girls used fallen leaves to decorate their sand cakes.

Our children enjoy the non-traditional playgrounds where the structures can be freely clambered on. At this one, there weren’t steps to the top of the slide, but children had to find their own way instead.

The park has an aquatic theme, and this large fish sculpture served as a sand-pit hidey-hole as well as a slide. To reach the top of the slide, children have to locate and use the hand and foot grips embedded among the fish scales.

Another large fish head was a cool cave. The interior is decorated by school students.

This wide slide was very tame and would suit toddlers.

I'm not sure why there was a nose embedded in the sand, but it certainly gave us a talking point.

A wooden ship skeleton is embedded in the sand close by, and it serves as a percussion instrument with the notes actually labelled (so if you were musically inclined, you could easily play a tune). David and I enjoyed creating a discordant rhythm together.

The ground under the flying fox was rubbery soft-fall material, making it safe for even very small children.

Pure enjoyment.

The paths around the playground were embedded with all sorts of interesting objects to encourage children to count, step carefully, feel textures and meander freely.

I hadn't seen this play equipment before. These huge beads can be rotated by a child who wants to create a pattern or make them all conform.

Every so often, a plane roars overhead as it comes in to land at Brisbane Airport — huge and majestic in size and sound.

Several large rocks are left lying around, offering children another option for clambering and balancing.

Wooden steps lead to the river and the shaded board-walk is pram-accessible via another route.

Down at the riverside, a sandy beach meets the calm water of the river.

While we were at the river, we let the girls paddle in the water. We also talked to a man collecting jelly prawns and another rowing out to his moored yaucht. The river traffic provided another source of entertainment with ferries creating mild wakes and other ships motoring under the Gateway bridges and past us very slowly.

It was a real treat to see this sailing ship go past!

The girls have previously been asking about ships, and seeing this huge cargo ship answered some questions and prompted many more.

Colmslie Reserve offers so many features that it could easily become a favourite place to visit except that it’s not very close to us. If you’re living close to Morningside, I’d definitely recommend that you check it out.

It was a lovely morning out — there was so much to explore!