Saturday 19 April 2014

Livvi's Place - Timbrell Park- Five Dock

(Another day off running but I'm planning on testing the ankle tomorrow morning)

While my husband, eldest and T1 went to watch a Rugby League game, my mother-in-law and I took T2 to Timbrell Park.

Yes - its fenced! :-)

This is the second Livvi's Place park we've been to and my son appeared to enjoy it better than the one at North Ryde (though we did go to that one on a stinking hot day).  In fact he really loved this park today.  Livvi's Place parks are parks that have been especially designed to accommodate children with additional needs to play alongside 'typical' children.

Firstly, they all have a gated fence around them.  But I did notice that the gate didn't self close and a family left it wide open (its funny how ASD parents notice many things that typical parents don't notice - we are always on danger alert!).   So if you have a runner you might want to keep your eye on that.  There are also bbqs in the enclosure, which in the past would have made me a little nervous for 2 reasons.  Firstly when he was little he would grab food and just eat it (very quickly) and secondly, as he used to have no conept of danger I would have worried he may have touched a hot bbq.  Thankfully, he no longer does those things so I was in a relatively relaxed state for the entire time, even though it was a busy long weekend and there were many kids playing at the park.

The park had a number of interesting features including xylophones, a 'bull ride', a fort, sandpit, climbing structures, and my son's absolute favourite - the merry go round.
There are a few different xylophones in the park

The park has plenty of shade

Plenty of accessible climbing structures



My son absolutely LOVED this!

 He spent ages on that!  After about an hour at the park (which is quite a long time for T2) we took a break and he scootered (while I ran after him) around the surrounding park which had a path around it.

We had a little scooter break



Then we headed back to the park.  Then the most amazing thing happened.  T2 made a little friend and played chase (his favourite game!) with this little boy for ages.  While we were on a positive note we headed home, but I think we spent close to two hours at Timbrell Park, which is a very good indication that he had a fantastic time.  If you would like show your child a video so they know what to expect, the Touched by Olivia Foundation have uploaded a video on youtube.  You can find it here.

Have you been to a different Livvi's Place park?  I'd like to check out the others.

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