Summer outdoor activities: parks

One of the main reasons we moved to Newmarket was the beautiful scenery and lots of parks. I would like to share a few of our favorite places to enjoy outdoors. They all are located within walking distance for us, which is great, and they are also all different and mostly very well taken care of.

The park on Wayne st., near the Glen Cedar secondary school. We like that it is located very close to our house, there are several slides of various heights, a sliding pole (this is important for a fire-truck-obsessed toddler), and a huge field to run around, a "forest" with a river and bridges, hiking tracks and even an apple tree. We used to love coming to this park back in the spring and the beginning of summer, but when it got too hot we switched for other parks, that have more shade. I am also not a big fan of the little stones that cover the playground in this park. I noticed that all babies and toddlers keep trying to either eat or throw them; they also make clothes very dirty.

George Richardson park, just at the end of Elgin st. This is one of our favorite parks. It is not as close as the previous one, but still just a 15 minute walk. It has lots of shade from big trees, benches to rest on, a picnic table, a baseball field with the seats for spectators, and even a practice cage. There is a huge field divided into 2 smaller soccer fields, a river with a beautiful bridge, and a Tom Taylor Trail right across the street. The playground is covered with wood chips, which is much better, as they are softer and not as inviting for toddlers to put in their mouth. I also find that even though there are always kids at this park, they are more contained and better supervised, as they come with parents, whereas at the previous park there are lots of school kids playing "grounders" and making the play difficult for toddlers.

 

 

Then there is our favorite for the summer time, the "Dinosaur" park. It is located at the end of the Tom Taylor Trail, on the other side of the railway from the water feature and Newmarket Community Center. I like the separate areas of this playground, I like that there are areas with sand, with wood chips, and even with a soft rubber flooring, like in a gym. I also love the fact that it is so close to the water feature, and after an hour of play in the sand, we would go straight to the water and run around there. It was beautiful back in the hot summer days.
 (I somehow didn't take a good photo of this park, but I do have a distant view snapshot).

We also love the  beautiful walking trail that leads to this park, a river, the ducks and the "dinosaur" bones that you can find in the sand.

 
We visited a small park on Queen st, behind the Southlake hospital. It is way too small, and the climbing wall was a bit too advance for Santino at his 22 months back then. We will try again next year.


There are other beautiful parks just a few steps away, like a huge playground near the Fairy Lake, and many others. Its hard to visit them all, but please do join in the conversation and share your photos of the beautiful parks in Newmarket and the area!