07 July 2007

Surprise! There's a Park in Here!

Officially designated "The Rohill Playground" on Hillsborough Township's GIS map, my kids just know this place as "the park". Nestled amongst the backyards of the Rohill development near Beekman Lane and Conover Drive, the park is all but invisible from any of the access streets: Peterson Rd., Lewis St., and Lane Rd. You'll be surprised when you find it!


The playground area consists of swings, slides, a climbing wall, and other elements - but there are some surprises in this "pocket" park.


The first surprise is the basketball court. Just one hoop - but a really nice court surface with all of the lines painted, including the three-point arc. Perfect for a game of half-court. There are even court-side benches, and a really nice looking hop-scotch game board painted in the back court area.

The next surprise is the picnic area. Five tables laid out nicely in a small grove, including trash cans to make clean up easy.





The park is encircled by a dog bone-shaped paved path - five laps for a mile. The great thing about the path is that it makes a perfect "road" to help the kids graduate from the training wheels. The path is wide enough for dad to run alongside, but narrow enough so that the spills have a good chance of ending up in the grass!

If you haven't been by here in a couple of years, there is another surprise waiting for you. In 2005 the park experienced a makeover - you can see the work being done in this photo from July of that year. The entire playground used to sit in a giant sandbox. Now the sand has been replaced with the more usual wood chips, and the old wooden slide/climber combination has been upgraded to the colorful contraption you see in the first picture.




All the surprises aren't happy however. Near the playground stands the old horse-shoe pits - overgrown and definitely out of service. I'm sure we'll see that area cleaned up or removed soon enough, and that won't surprise me at all!

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