The willow tree rock pirates

You know when you were little and there was a place your family wenton lazy holiday afternoons.  You guys went there often enough for the place to be familiar, but not so regularly that it didn't remain special and magic and full of the promise of a game not oft played..?

When we were little and still living in Edinburgh Granny C used to take sisterS__ and I to the Botanic Gardens. I loved the rock garden and the glasshouses were amazing - they looked like castles from the outside and on the inside they were warm and filled with ponds and water lillies and they seemed never ending.

But mostly I loved a massive flat stone that was placed in the middle of a creek under a willow tree.

The stone was large enough for sisterS__ and I to turn into a pirate ship.

Up in Queensland Mama, sisterB__ and I went and had a picnic at Crystal Creek. It felt like another place full of magic and games. I wonder what a pair of five and eight year old girls would have made of it?
A pair of twenty four & twenty nine year old girls tried to swim against the waterfall and splashed and shivered and laughed loudly in exhilaration.

Then we ate sumac roasted chicken & beetroot with fetta and chatted with Mama.

Did you have a magic imagination land game place? Maybe one like this place?

Oh happy sigh!