They're the salvation of parents every school holidays, the perfect escape for a house full of cooped-up youngsters.
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Canberra has always been well served with playgrounds, from the likes of Weston Park and its long-gone Mousehouse to the brand new Pod playground at the National Arboretum.
In the last financial year Territory and Municipal Services (TAMS) invested more than $1.7 million on playground equipment and almost $1 million on maintenance.
Meanwhile, construction is well advanced on the Boundless Canberra playground, a huge all-abilities project at Kings Park on Lake Burley Griffin.
But what makes a great playground?
From Fadden to Gungahlin, parents and children alike said the keys were adventure, discovery and a hint of danger.
At John Knight Memorial Park in Belconnen, mother Claire Sykes said: "There's interesting gaps up there where kids could actually fall through, so they feel a sense of adventure.''
A self-styled ''superhero'', Amaroo eight -year-old Zac Rolls said he loved the thrills of the flying fox at Yerrabi Ponds in Gungahlin because it was "a bit scary".
TAMS manager of design and development of parks Diana Hill said designers of Canberra's playgrounds tried to create a safe environment but still one that could test a child.
"It's about providing a range of different types of play, whether it's triggering physical activity or it might be imaginative play, social play, also addressing a broad range of abilities."
"Can I jump that distance between those two balance bars? And they can make that call, whether they're able to actually extend themselves that far.''
Despite the best planning, when children are testing their limits, accidents do happen.
At the same time Palmerston mother Shelley Penyu was describing how much her children enjoyed the water play of Weston Park, another child was being treated by paramedics after a moment of overconfidence on the nearby ''spider web''.
Calvary Hospital emergency department co-director Matt Luther said falls were the most common kind of accident and usually produced only cuts, grazes, sprains or strains.
The introduction of ''soft fall'' materials, such as pine bark or rubber, had substantially decreased the severity of injuries.
"The frequency of child trauma is fairly high in regards to the proportion of patients that we see, but in regards to playground injuries it's not that high," he said.
Mr Luther said parents should leave children to make those judgments on their own.
"If you pick your kid up to get to something, that puts them at more risk than if they climb to get to it," he said.
Despite the advances in technology since she was a child, grandmother Kerry Highley said playgrounds such as her local Kambah Adventure Playground were irreplaceable.
"The basic sort of concepts of playing, being outside, using up lots of energy, that hasn't changed. Even with the input now of iPads and iPods, there's still that need to get some physical activity," she said.
Dunlop father Craig Virtue said children could easily become preoccupied with their games consoles, so the onus was on parents to encourage outside play.
"I think it's important to make those opportunities, actually take them to the places where they have to play."
Where is your favourite playground? What makes it so good? Let us know in the comments.