Berkeley Aquatic Park

Yesterday we decided to OptOutside for Black Friday (thank you REI!) and headed down to the Berkeley Aquatic Park. Having lived in the area all my life, I'd somehow never been here. It's a pretty funky park - a skinny strip of land tucked between the railroad tracks and the freeway with a strip of grass running along a lagoon. There's a paved path that runs the whole length of the park that's very popular with walkers and runners and bikers. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were lots of people! It's completely level. We parked at the north end at the foot of Addison St. and walked all the way to the south end, almost to Emeryville. The round trip was almost exactly 3 miles.

The reason we chose to spend the afternoon at this funky little park? Butterflies! For the first time anyone knows about, there are Monarch butterflies clustering in the ash trees near the 14th hole of the disk golf course. They are amazing! There were huge clusters of butterflies that looked like some growth on the tree and lots of them flittering around.

There's a playground with some pretty awesome structures. There's a disc golf course running the length of the park. It's actually pretty, if you avoid thinking about the freeway that's always in your view. It's also not a park you want to visit when it's getting dark since it's got quite a reputation for being a hang out for some pretty shady characters.

 Park information here.

Complete image set here.