Starkey Nature Park, located in the heart of Zionsville, is many things to many people: it’s a great place for easy hikes, it’s a peaceful place to birdwatch and study nature, it’s a beautiful setting for photography. But to my family, Starkey Nature Park is the best place to go creek stomping. I don’t use the word “best” lightly when talking about creek stomping locations, because we’ve been to several parks and we’re veteran creek stompers, so we’ve seen a creek or two!
Starkey Nature Park is the Larges Park in Zionsville
Starkey Nature Park is 80 acres, making it the largest park in Zionsville. Even though it is one of our favorite parks in the area, we still haven’t seen it all. Partly because it’s so big, but also because we tend to make a beeline straight for the water. Eagle Creek runs through the park, and it’s in these waters that we splash and swim during the warm weather months.
One of the great things about the creek at Starkey is that there are areas for all ages: there are shallow, peaceful places for babies and young kids who just want to get their toes wet. Then there are deeper places in the creek, where you can swim somewhat (well, if you’re a kid and you sit down!). The best part of the creek is the “waterfall” area — it’s what my kids call the area where the water flows fast and falls over a bank of rocks. It’s a fun little area where you can sail boats over the edge and watch them float down into the rest of the creek.
And speaking of floating, Starkey is a wonderful place to bring your inflatable and float down the creek yourself. We’ve brought inflatable donuts, inflatable boats, boogey boards — anything that keeps us floating, we have used at Starkey to float down the creek.
A thing to note about Starkey Nature Park is that there are no restrooms in the park. So parents, if you’re in the throes of potty training, you might want to plan ahead
Starkey Nature Park is located at 667 Sugarbush Dr. in Zionsville. It is open year round from dawn to dusk.
