Swinging next to the train line

If there's anything I love almost as much as a fine swing, it's a train, so imagine my joy at being able to combine a bit of train spotting with my swinging! This is possible at the John Paton Reserve (John Paton was a war hero, prison governor and Summer Hill resident).

There's a choice of rubber seat or fixed bar seat, although the rubber seat is way too low. The setting's not very inspiring...train's too far away, Franklins carpark and block of units too close. There's also a funny attached skate board-type piece of equipment that looks like you could really hurt yourself on, if that's your thing.
There's nothing the matter with them, but they just didn't quite do it for me. I'm giving this one an 8.5

Swinging with Mary Poppins

Ashfield Park is a great park. It's so big and there are lots of flower beds and big trees and a maze and people doing tai chi and a couple who walks around clapping strangely out of time with one other. It's also near where the creator of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, lived for six years. I bet Ashfield Park is what inspired her to create Mary Poppins!
But, I digress. There are four lots of swings (eight all up, two of which are for toddlers), each with a different character and outlook on the park. Some of them are too close to the ground (grrrr!) but there's a couple that are just right.
No bad squeek, nice woodchips on the ground, flexible rubber seats, pretty trees nearby.
I'm giving this one a 9 out of 10.
For a 10 it would need a nicer outlook (top of a windswept cliff perhaps) and be close enough to trees that I could touch a leaf or two with my toes when I swang up.

Teenraging at Underwood Reserve

This is a controversial swing to start with because strictly speaking it isn't even a swing, but what the hey!
So, apparently there's a brand of playground equipment that caters specifically for teenagers called Teenrager and their answer to the swing is the "Sky Surfer". I haven't been a teenager for about ten years, so maybe I'm not qualified to judge the Surfer, but for my swinging money they've missed out on the fundamental fun element - the ability to go really high, by making it able to go around 360˚. Just when you're getting up to a good height there's a change in wind direction or something and you spin around (and not even in a fun satisfying way) and you have to start again with your mad ascent. Bah.

Points for the wide seat (often a problem for us adult swingers), and being far enough off the ground. On the down side, it also makes that unsettling sweeky 'ger-dunk' sound with every swing. I dread that sound because it reminds me that I'm not a little kid anymore and then it makes me hate the world (especially playground equipment designers), and then I'm not having fun in the swinging moment. Swinging shouldn't be about hate, so I'm giving this one 4 out of 10.

Address: Underwood Reserve, Summer Hill, Sydney, Australia

A Summer Project

This blog will probably not last forever, but that's alright. I will get done what I can.
And what is it that I want to achieve? To swing on as many swings (the ones in parks) as I can, and catalogue their highs and lows. I want to find the best swings in the world and I'm starting off in Sydney because that's where I happen to be...

My qualifications for this task?
1) I've liked swinging since I was a little kid
2) I still really like swinging
3) I've even made a short film about it (called, funnily enough 'Swing' back in 2000)