des Éperviers Park

 

This is the kind of park that every city needs. An all-in-one, well-designed multi-generational destination park with a mega playground, splash pad, tennis, basketball, trails, outdoor amphitheatre for entertainment, and an outdoor fitness course. 

This park is sparkly and new, and officially opened on May 14th, 2016.

I’ll admit to having driven by the park FOUR times while it was under construction. And I don’t live anywhere near it. I’m sure the workers were all “There goes that woman again, driving suuuuuper slowly….”

Tessier Récréo-Parc did a great job in the playground with GameTime products, fantastic attention to detail, some unique features, and play structures that are age-appropriate for both toddlers, and older kids needing a challenge. 
Separated by a small concrete walkway, it’s quite easy to keep an eye on kids in both play areas, but note that there is neither fencing around the playground or the park itself. There are plenty of benches and picnic tables scattered throughout the park, and some tables are wheelchair accessible. 

We started at the toddler climber where we checked out the slides, the “bird nest” pod, climbed up the stairs and traveled across the bridge, and then spun the ground-level wheel and searched for the various images throughout the equipment. “Windmill?” “Found it!”
I vetoed crawling through the crawl tube myself, lest I get stuck, and opted to go up the climbing wall instead. I think that was a smart move. Just beside the climber are the swings, but for such a large park there aren’t all that many. There are two big-kid swings, one baby swing and one adaptive swing (which I was happy to see). And I’ll be nit picky, but I would love to have seen some spring riders, or a ground-level playhouse as not all little kids like climbing. 

Then we scampered (I walked) to the large climber with its myriad of ladders, rings, GIANT slides, and climbing apparatus. Lots of challenging and intricate ways to go across and up, and again, some great attention to detail. The little guy sat in the stacked rings and pretended to be a bird. 

The splash pad has a beautifully painted concrete base by Tennis Mapa Inc., and water features from Pointe-Claire’s Vortex Aquatic Structures. With benches and tables surrounding the play area, and an open-sided shelter with cozy Adirondack chairs, this is a great spot to cool off after a morning of playing. There are tall cattails, spinning flowers, water cannons, small bubblers, and a turnable sail (complete with NDIP’s logo 🙂 )
Steps away is the bright and modern chalet which has its opening hours posted on the door. The bathroom inside is large and clean, and you’ll also find drinking fountains inside and out.

We did a little walk around, saw the water retention basin with its fountain, visited the older itty-bitty playground on Boulevard Virginie Roy and adjacent to the soccer field, and then stared up at the large dedicated graffiti wall.

Before leaving we tried out looked at the TrekFit outdoor fitness stations which are placed near the hockey rink and run next to the road. Each station has an information panel explaining the different exercises. 

Things to note:
-The splash pad hours are 9am-8pm daily. 
-There are two bathrooms including in the main chalet near the splash pad, near the smaller playground, and a porta-potty by the Trekfit Gym.
-There’s a small parking lot beside the playground area just off of Rue de la Rivelaine, with another small lot on Boulevard Virginie Roy near the sanitary building and more washrooms.
-There is one spot for electric car charging in the main parking lot on Rivelaine.
-If your electronic devices are running low on battery, you can charge them at the station beside the splash pad!
-Neither the playground or splash pad are fenced and there is no shade over the playground. 

Parc des Éperviers – Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot from StrollerMom on Vimeo.

2 Comments

  • Nicola says:

    Just came back from our first visit and we were super impressed! All this park is missing is some more shade!

    • StrollerMom says:

      I’ve got to do a follow up visit soon, as we were there before the water was even turned on in the splash pad!
      And yes, it needs some more shade, those trees should grow in 20 years or so 😉

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