153. Westminster Pier Park - East Playground

Charlotte and I ditched pre-school and work early today - and set off on an adventure!  We took the bus down to the Quay and walked east along the boardwalk, as far as we could go.  We were in search of a geocache at the far end of the boardwalk ("There's a $^@#3 in my Boot!"), which we didn't find, but we had fun getting there.  Along the way, we stopped off at the west playground, which we have visited before, then here, at the east playground.  This one is much smaller than the west playground and designed for younger kids.  There were a couple of kids playing here, but they were being told not to climb (!) so they weren't a whole lot of fun to play with and we soon continued on our way to the giant W made out of shipping containers.  After our failed attempt at finding the cache, we took the glass elevator back up to street level and caught the bus home again for dinner.  Charlotte walked and walked - I don't think she ever walked quite so far in her life!  The playground is point no. 153 on the map at the bottom of home page.

50. Waterfront Esplanade, New Westminster

This was a bit of an accidental playground for us - we were on our way to a different playground when we passed by this one! It's a place we've been many times before, but for some reason, this was our first visit this year. We ended up down here today because we had a flat tire earlier in the day and though we planned to have it fixed the next day, we were without a car in the meantime. We took the bus down (dad too - it was our family day!) and walked along the boardwalk, heading for Westminster Pier Park when we passed by the tugboat. It's not a playground in the usual sense of the word and yet it's designed as a structure for kids to play on - which therefore makes it a playground, even if it has no swings or slides! It's also part museum as it has a few old nautical-themed relics in it. Nearby is the Riverfront Market, which is a great place to put a picnic together, and the World's Tallest Tin Solider presides over it all. There used to be a geocache just under the cuff of his pants, but that's long gone. Instead, there is another geocache to be found just downstream, "Fraser Surrey Docks". The tugboat is located at N 49.12.021 W 122.54.644:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1