Cates Park Playground- North Vancouver

Cates Park Playground is a bit like a Disneyland of playgrounds. Not only is it flashy and new with as many bells and whistles as you could hope for, but it's plonked down in a lovely park with views, walking trails and beaches. We hadn't been to it before and as we drove slowly up and pulled into one of the plentiful parking spots our boy 'A' summed things up in a serious statement...."I'm going to play [dramatic pause] there".

This playground has too much equipment to accurately describe so forgive the lack of details. There are two play areas - one for the big kids, one for the little kids but frankly everyone was all over everything. The only thing that stopped me from being all over everything too was fear of being frowned upon by the other parents. The little kid side is on it's own woodchip circle surrounded by logs, and it features lots to climb up and down, nice chunky steps and a curved plastic slide. There are things to grab and hang from and there is also a bouncy fish. This side is definitely the quietest.


The big kid side is almost overwhelming, with a tangled mess of things to climb up and down, activity walls, slides (at least one high fast metal and one shorter plastic), climbing walls, rope ladder bridges, metal bridges and children, children, children- hence not being able to show this fantastic playground off in the best photos. There are fun activity walls with things to bash, twiddle, or twist, there is a car-sized seesaw, a pudding basin........what else....what else...it's starting to feel like a game show I grew up with in the UK where the contestant had to name as many things as possible in one minute......swings! There are swings- a toddler, a therapeutic and two big kid swings. And this is all on a woodchip base.


There is parking, washrooms, shade from whatever is beating down on you- sun or rain and there are some frills too- a burger bar nearby and if you time things right in the Summer you could get some free music too.