Surface: sand.
Although it doesn’t have the outstanding equipment of its beach neighbour at Kew Gardens, the playground at Ashbridges Bay Park is worth a slot on your beach day schedule.
Located right next to the Martin Goodman Trail (which is a plus if you’re getting there by bike, but perhaps a minus if you worry about your little one getting mowed down by a spandex-clad beach resident training for his next big ride) this playground has a good variety of equipment, and decent shade around the perimeter.
My son’s favourite part was the section on the smaller climber which allows kids to ring little bells, which is cute, and probably comically distracting for nearby cyclists who mistake it for a bicycle bell and look for a phantom bike over their shoulder.
I tend to dislike playgrounds whose only surface is sand, but I guess I can forgive this one, seeing how it’s right next to the beach.Which is, of course, its other main selling point: it’s right next to the beach.
Specifically, it’s the part of the beach given over to beach volleyball. At the height of summer, there are approximately 87 million beach volleyball courts set up here. Kids get a kick out of watching such an unusual sight. My daughter was fascinated; she kept pointing and saying “ball!’ with a distinct tone of disbelief at the sheer number of spheres stretching off into the horizon.
So I took one for the team, and stood there with her for a good twenty minutes, watching hundreds of finely-toned beach volleyball players lunging and spiking in their bathing suits. It was a heroic sacrifice I made for the good of my child.
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