135. Evil Birds Park, Richmond

I had come across this playground while geocaching alone a couple of months ago; I chose not to go after the cache back then, preferring to wait until Charlotte was with me.  After all, there's nothing that makes me happier than a geocache and nothing that makes Charlotte happier than a playground, so if you put the two of them together...!  As far as I know, this tiny park doesn't have a name, so I have unofficially named it after the geocache, "Watch Out for Evil Birds", so named because of all the bird houses that hang from the park's trees.  We didn't see any evil birds, but we did see a little nuthatch creeping about on the tree trunks in search of food.  The playground was quite old school - wooden splinters and all.  Charlotte had fun swinging on the tire and loved going through the geocache, finally choosing a little toy squirrel to take with her and leaving behind one of her previously-treasured Easter eggs.  The playground is located at N 49.10.057 W 123.10.097 (which also happens to be the coordinates of the geocache!) and is point no. 135 on the map at the bottom of home page.

134. Memorial Park, Hope

We are going camping!!!  We set off today for the Fraser Canyon to work on our 49 degree challenge a little bit, swim in Nehatlatch Lake and spend a couple of nights under the stars.  We stopped in Hope along the way to visit a new playground.  It was a hot day and the ever-present winds of Hope were blowing, but blowing hot this time.  Charlotte had a great time in the yellow tunnel in the picture and made lots of new friends.  There was a zip line to play on - nothing like the one at Terra Nova, but she still had fun with it!  I didn't much like it - there was nothing for her to sit on like the one at Terra Nova, so I was supporting her weight the whole time because she couldn't hang on by herself!  There was an elderly couple sitting on the bench next to mine, watching the kids.  They were pointing out the antics of this one and that, commenting when a less brave kid summoned up the courage to take on the slide.  They seemed to be taking so much pleasure in watching the kids play - it was really quite sweet.  There is a little Japanese garden in the park, adjacent to the playground.  We stopped to have a look and Charlotte loved playing on the rocks around the pond.  The start of a multi-cache called "Tashme" is hidden there - but I happen to know that the final is to be found on the way to Manning Park and we were not going that way today.  The playground is located at N 49.22.817 W 121.26.499 and is point no. 134 on the map at the bottom of home page.