Jervois Street Reserve in South Plympton
After two years of community consultation with local residents, schools and other community groups, the City of Marion officially opened the Jervois Street Reserve park and playground in 2016.
A quick look at what you’ll find here:
- Toddler/Junior nature based playground (0-5 years): fully fenced, sand play, water play, slides, swings.
- Older Children playground (6-12 years): older climbing equipment, flying fox.
- Bike, scooter and trike course
- Chess tables (BYO pieces)
- Fitness equipment
- Loop path around the site
- Oval for ball sports and exercise
- Ping pong tables (BYO paddles and balls)
- Three-on-three basketball and netball
- BBQs & shelter with 2 tables & seating
- Bike Stands
- Drinking fountains
- Toilet (accessible for disabled)
- Plenty of street parking with 2 dedicated disabled spaces (try parking in the street over, Waterhouse Rd, which is less congested than Jervois St)
The fully fenced playground for littlies is perfect for kids 0 to 5 years old. It’s a wonderful nature based design so apart from the obvious play equipment there are lots of things to explore here with wooden logs or rocks to climb.
The water pump means lots of fun water play. Be prepared for your child to get wet and bring a change of clothes.
The twin slides will have little ones racing down with a friend. There’s wooden seats dotted around the playground for you to sit and watch.
There are individual swings as well as the fun basket swing to share the ride with other little people.
We love the Very Hungry Caterpillar theme of this playground – most kids will be familiar with the book and might notice the apple with a tunnel hole, as well as the big butterfly shade.
The nature play design around the reserve means there are plenty of opportunities to explore. Kids will find their own ways of playing with the wooden structures and big rocks laid around.
The BBQ is brand new and the adjacent tables and benches are well shaded.
*Editors note* – October 2019 visit
Since this review was written in 2016, additional butterfly shade sails have been installed and the video below shows how much the vegetation has really grown creating an even greater nature play space.
Bring your sand toys to dig and play in the big sand pit.
Adjacent to the playground areas, there is a large grassy area for ball sports, flying a kite and general running around. It’s amazing how much fun a grassy mound (pictured below) can be!
Older kids will love the basketball and netball court. Perfect if you have kids of varying ages – while the younger ones play in the playground, the older ones can do other ball sports.
The wooden climbing frame for older kids is simple in design but offers plenty of challenges for the 6 to 12 year olds. They will also enjoy the flying fox.
The good old monkey bars are there – it’s a rite of passage for any child to have blisters on hands while working on getting all the way across.
The small BMX track is perfect for little ones to have a go on their bikes, trikes or scooters. You will be amazed how long kids can go around and around the same circuit for!
There is a loop path right around the park. Just a note of warning though – the outer edges of the reserve is not fenced and as you can see below, the loop path is not far from the road so stay close to any younger children riding on this path and only let experienced or older children ride the path on their own. There is quite a distance between the perimeters – if you are supervising from one point of the track, they can get quite far away from you pretty quickly.
Bring your chess pieces to play on the chess tables, or table tennis bat and ball.
Play & Go Tips
Parking: Jervois St can get very busy and it can get very congested. The traffic there is becoming a problem. There is parking on the next street over, Waterhouse Rd which is wider and has more parking.
Coffee: just down the street there’s a drive thru OTR for coffee and snacks (including Subway) on the corner of Marion Rd/Waterhouse Rd plus a little cafe on Towers Tce in walking distance.
Change of clothes: there’s a water pump in the junior playground – expect that your little one will probably get wet and then roll around in the sand pit too.
Shade: until the newly planted trees grow there will not be a lot of shade for a little while. Be sure to bring hats & sunscreen on warm days and don’t stay too long in the sun.
This is a great example of a well thought out community space which has been achieved by consulting the people who will be using it. As a result it ticks all the boxes of a great use of space that will benefit people of all ages and hopefully encourage lots of outdoor play. This is a great initiative by the City of Marion who will be holding an official opening later in August to celebrate.
Our Play & Go playground testers ranged from 2 years to 8 years old – they loved it so much that they talked their Dad into taking them again the next morning.
“Totally good.” was the verdict from Mr 4.
A big thank you to Play & Go Dad, Dan, who took the photos for this review, and his young playground testers, Lily (8), Laney (6), Sam (4) & Lucy (2).
Location:
Between Jervois Street & Waterhouse Street, South Plympton
Click here for all the best playgrounds for toddlers
See our top parks & playgrounds around Adelaide
See the City of Marion website for more information.
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
Image Source: All photos by Play & Go
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