Best Places in New Jersey for Kids: Dorbrook Recreation Area

By Phil Stilton

Colts Neck, NJ (GoKidsNJ) – Tucked away amid Colt’s Neck’s horse ranches and somewhere between Eastmont Orchards and Delicious Orchards, you’ll find one of New Jersey’s most unique county parks, the Dorbook Recreation Area, home of the Dorbrook Spray Park.    The spray park is a water play area designed by the Monmouth County Park System with dozens of water sprinklers, buckets and water play activities for kids from toddlers through pre-teens.

While the park, to adults may not seem very large, to children on a hot summer day, it’s just a huge and fun as any commercial water park.  Best of all, the park is free.   Children can play with the cascading waterfall activity, wait under the buckets dumping gallons of water on the children or like most, move between the activities for hours at a time.

The water is clean and safe, it is filtered chlorine, tested for ph and levels daily by park system employees and twice weekly by the Monmouth County Health Department.    Infants must wear approved swim diapers and food and drink is not allowed in the Spray Park.

When the children get waterlogged, Dorbrook Recreation Area comes fully equipped with picnic tables, shaded grass areas for blanket picnics, soccer fields and one of largest modern soft base playgrounds in the state.   Did I mention it is also home to the biggest sandbox I’ve ever seen in all the years I’ve been travelling around New Jersey for GoKidsNJ?

The playground is split into several main areas.  There is the 5-12 set which features activities that will work the minds and muscles of any child.  One of the neat features in this playground is the rolling slide which the children roll down a slide made completely of warehouse style rollers.   There is a huge sitting seesaw, swings and a very large toddler play area.    To most kids, the main attraction is the huge sandbox that was very clean, unlike many we’ve been to over the years.

Beyond the Challenger Place playground and the Spray Park, Dorbrook Recreation area encompasses 535 acres of open space and wooded areas which include 2.3 miles of paved trails for walking, biking and skating.     The park has tennis courts, basketball courts, an inline skating rink and two swimming pools used for park system swim lessons.

The open space has made Dorbrook Park an ideal place for flying kites and model rocket launches.    The Dorbrook Recreation Area in Colts Neck definitely ranks near the top as one of New Jersey’s best county parks.  For more information and directions, visit the Dorbrook Recreation Area’s website.