Matsqui Village Park

Tucked into the heritage Matsqui Village is none other that Matsqui Village Park. Makes sense right?

Haven't seen things to climb like this yet! Why climb structures when you can climb trees. So much sense here.

Lots of shade, lots of sun, lots of trees, lots of fun..

Hey I'm a poet and didn't know it!



There's even little BBQ stands throughout.

One of the better parts of this park if I do say so myself. It had been a long day and those stainless steel toilets are just super!

 Playground, tennis court, grassy space, roller hockey rink (used to be the awesome pool :(  )
baseball field, bathrooms, it's got it all!

Including a stagnant river ha ha!

Douglas Taylor Park

 Douglas Taylor Park is a great place to walk, stroll, step in horse dookie etc. From a central parking lot there are several ways to enter this trail park.

Deviating from the trail can lead you to shadier more wooded areas as well as sillier selfies!














               

                                                                                                                                                                                                 
You can see from the picture it's a decent
sized trail.





Turkey is bear aware! Now that I'm aware, on to the next! I can live without bears.

Mount Lehman Community Hall

There is no sign anywhere, but it's on the map so it must be so! That's it, soccer field, parking lot. Next!

Unstable Slope Park

What's that you say? Another unnamed park? Why yes! Yes it is. Just follow the map and you'll find them.














When they say unstable they REALLY mean it. If you venture here, please use caution. One step off the gravel bits and it's sinking city.

Trails and more trails......

Huge trees and huge slugs to be found here. You can see the water erosion on this trail as you make your way down to the Fraser River. We didn't go down to the bottom as the though that bears could be out and about got the better of us. I also didn't bring pepper spray and it would be wrong to feed bears such bland people.

Again, you can't see how severe the drop is, but it's about 100 feet down and very easy to get there as the bank is super squishy and is just dying to break away from it's mountain parent any minute.


Don't take your little ones here, unless you need to get your heart going.



Personally I wouldn't mind finding out if it makes it all the way to the river or not...

The Place Across from the Ghost Ferry

Here is an area that we couldn't get to so we just have to guess what's there. At the end of the road is someone's property and then just beyond that property is what I'm guessing is another treed area that belongs to the city.











So just past the dark shrub the slope goes down abruptly. Again I'm going to guess that it's just trees leading to the Fraser River. If you look very closely though, you can see the abandoned BC Ferry on the other side of the river. It may give you a bit of perspective as to where we are.

FYI: I strive to not be a trespasser and I'm making sure that I don't trample on someone else's property or go where we are not allowed to be.

Bradner and Marsh McCormick

                                                                                                                                   Another one of those mysterious green spots on the map. There was a picnic table. We ate lunch here. It was so very quiet and peaceful. There is a trail leading down to the Matsqui flats. Previous tire tracks tell me that it's used for mountain biking quite a bit and we've already established that that's not for me ha ha. Moving on...

                                                             














Big drop off the side, hard to see in the picture, very clear in real life. Still lovely, be careful.

Where we saw deer

Sooooo, hmm


I used to consider Abbotsford to be weird for reasons I can't remember. The parks map that I have from the city has little green patches all over it so signify a park area. There no distinction whether it's a playground park or something else.

This one is something else. If you've ever driven this part of Abbotsford, you'll know that the green area with the curved line is an absolutely crazy hill. No park, lots of trees, and a steep, long hill.

Going down we passed a cyclist going up. He was almost at the top, going slow, but going. I was totally impressed! I don't think I'd get more than 7 feet up the hill and I'm 5'8" so my worn out corpse could make up most of that distance.

Going up we saw him coming down. I can only guess that that's his reward for going up. Personally I'd poop myself going down that hill on a bike but that's also why I don't do that.  We also saw two deer cross the road just as we were halfway up.

Bradner Community Park

Missed the full name of the park in this selfie, oops! Bradner Community Park is the name and clearly baseball is the game. Two full baseball parks and a tennis court is what comes with this rural area.

There technically is no playground here, but there is a school just next to it which does have a playground, but seeing as schools are not in the theme of this blog, there are no pictures. Maybe next year.

Hogan Family Nature Park

We found it! Hogan Family Nature Park.

Sketchy entry at best, I don't know what happens if you pass another car on the way into here, but it didn't happen today so I won't worry about it.

The brave Turkey heads into mystery. Really the "parking lot" lends little to comfort, and the surveillance sign encouraged my wariness.

So wariness forgotten. It's beautiful!! Trees and trails and bridges oh my! I could spend quite a while here. Looking forward to coming back for sure!

Heh heh heh!




At some point I'll find out how long the trail is. I don't suspect it's super huge, very achievable for kids.

Unclad Persons Park

The top part of the map is our next destination. The city has it all greened up in the same fashion as it's parks and playgrounds.

There is no park at this location however, but this IS a new neighborhood that's being built so I'm guessing that it's slated to become a park when it's finished. We entered the catwalk to this "park" and Turkey saw the tall grass and got very excited to go in. All I saw was the full sets of clothing, shoes, purses etc shown on the left side of this picture.

All I could think was that maybe there were unclad persons in this field and I thought it not best for the children to roam, just in case. Seeing as this "park" has no name, we have named it appropriately for the time being.

 






We can still take our selfies anyways :)

Could be a nice area to run in the tall grass (watch out for nudes!)

We did go to the other side where we found a volleyball court. We'll have to check back later to see the progress.

Swensson Park

We are at Swensson Park now, we're journeying along the border of Abbotsford today.









Really nice entrance to the park on the side we started on

     

We couldn't decide if this thing was a gorilla or just a blob... you decide.

Past the entrance is a big soccer field and a trail leading to a playground which has both the little kids and big kids play structures

 

I'm noticing a lot of the newer parks are coming with more than just grass and slides. Tennis anyone?

Pepin Brook Park

We went to Pepin Brook Park today. As we made the turn to head here, the kids were remarking how big and fancy the houses were. Beans said that that must mean the park is big and fancy too!

Quite the assumption. I wondered if he was right?










                                       


It seems like he was right.
I missed taking a shot of the ginormous grassy area, but it's huge for the standard subdivision type park.

Taking a panoramic shot on a cell phone makes for a smaller picture than expected. 

It is very nicely landscaped, seating is all over the place. There is a basketball court, but there are no hoops yet, I'm guessing it's coming. It all seems very new.

The boys liked this spinny thing over the ones from any other parks so far because this one could fit two of them on it.

Beans felt that a restraint may not have been necessary, but I didn't suggest he could use the other swing ha ha! There was also one of those swings that you put the baby in and there's an attached one for the parent so they can both swing and be close. Very cool.

This may have been the favorite. They decided that it was bigger than the one at Abby Middle school AND Grampa's park combined. 

It was pretty cool and anyone else climbing on it moves all the ropes for everyone else and makes it sort of bouncy.

Another fun part was the spinny chair, which picks up it's own momentum and is very hard to stop due to the way it makes your legs stick up. I learned this the hard way in our first 5 minutes here.

Beans took a turn, not bad, didn't barf, fell down though, 

Turkey took a turn, I think he was hoping to be as relaxed as his brother afterwards. It didn't work.

All in all, this park has yielded the most complaining and whining about it being time to go. I'm going to say it's a good one!