Bridges Hill Park — Attraction in Cessnock

This is a great play park. It's very large and has a wide range of equipment and play areas for many age groups. Kids who can walk confidently by themselves (not toddlers) will have plenty of fun. We saw a large primary school group have a tonne of fun here. For older kids, there's half a basket ball court. For adults and groups, there's heaps of shaded picnic tables and BBQs and even some deck chairs. There's a club across the road that's convenient for a meal but isn't the most family friendly.

That said and despite my 5 star rating, there are a plethora of design flaws - some merely annoying, some a bit dangerous. There are many shade cloths and trees but they miss some critical parts like the top of metal slippery dips and the deck chairs. There are soft ground areas that mightn't help someone who fell from the top of a climbing wall. There are sandstone blocks with sharp edges and corners at the bottom of a hill that toddlers will definitely stumble down, even though the designers knew to treat the blocks just a few metres away (I think there shouldn't be stone blocks at all in that area). The water play area is a bit miserable and has no drain, even though this is a place that swelters in summer and all the kids I saw today loved to congregate and play with the tiny bit they had. There is no fence between the park and the parking lot or roads, even though the large park encourages kids to roam freely. There are ramps here but mostly there's stairs and, as the name suggests, it's on a hill so I'm not sure whether or not it's accessible or fun for mobility impaired people - kids or...

It has been renovated and it's still getting renovated, hubby and I had lunch at 1 of the undercover BBQ areas ( we had takeaway maccas), we than took a little walk around there and it has play areas for children of all ages, they have a basketball court, a little road way so the little ones can learn to ride their bikes in safety while learning how to be road sense aware at the same time, they have heaps of educational items there as well including...

The park is definitely the main attraction of Kitchener! With a HUGE playground for the kiddos, plenty of picnic benches and BBQs, and huge areas of green for kids to run or bike around. The mine shaft is definitely an attraction. Unfortunately the damn behind it is closed for now. Overall, great place to feed the birds, watch kids play and have the quietness of a small country town (with the occasional sounds of dirt bikes...