There’s not much to Hastings Mill Park — no major playground, no sports fields, no real amenities outside the playground — but when you’re a big field right on the ocean you don’t need a ton to be a nice park to hang out in.

And Hastings Mill has a big grassy feel, in good enough condition that you can easily layabout if you want to avoid bigger crowds to the beaches immediately west, but not big enough that a game of soccer will appear around you. The all-wood playground is more “interesting” than “fun”, but there’s quirky art surrounding it, and you have the heritage factor of the oldest building in the city right inside the park (the former store for Hastings Mill, moved and repurposed into a museum in the 1930s).

This is the second worst park in West Point Grey, so it’s slightly less used that others, but it would be the second best park in several other neighbourhoods.

Would that all neighbourhoods be so lucky.