Maritime Cove Community Park, Port Melbourne

Located:

This playground, is hidden, nestled between huge walls of the Dock complex, and the beach that overlooks Princes Pier, where the huge ships beckon. If you head along Todd Road, and turn onto the side road, before seeing the Life Saving Victoria building, you will eventually find a car park. Towards the end of the car park, you can see the playground start to peak out from behind the coastal tea trees. The whole area has been beautifully landscaped and works with the natural surroundings. Several people have used the gorgeous bike paths to ride down to have a play. There were a few shipping containers that people were also using to house some birthday parties – a very popular place!

Equipment:

• large sand/grit based play
  • separated into toddler play
    • smaller timber climbing structure, with steps, footholds, small slide
    • large sand play wall
    • digger
    • turtle and seal statues
    • boat structure
    • spinning tyre
    • spinning bowl
  • majority of the remaining play encompasses nets and climbing
    • large net climbing walls
    • balance net walks
    • timber structure with large metal slide
    • moving bridges
    • fireman pole
    • sand play
• several buoys/channel markers that the kids can climb on – added footholds, ladders
• water play area
  • driven by the action of the see saw or the hand pump. Quite a workout to get the spray out!
  • channel play in another area

Jack liked:

climbing into the channel markers, and climbing up the poles to have a lookout at the whole area. Once I figured out he was happy to walk on the sand with his shoes off, he was more excited about exploring the area. He loved the sand play wall and tipping the dish of sand into the spouts or onto the balance dish and seeing where the sand went. The playground was quite busy on the weekend when we visited, and Jack loved helping his dad pump the water and wet everyone in the water play section. A lot of the playground is still too advanced for him, but this is a playground I will return to when Jack is old enough to climb and explore by himself!