LONDON - Visitors never know what they might encounter at Olympic “Park Live” gatherings.

Imagine strolling into Victoria Park last week, just as ‘Bumbling Boris' Johnson, London's mayor, was stuck dangling from a zip line for several minutes, 45 metres from the ground.

Inadvertently, Bumbling Boris may have stumbled upon the true meaning of the Olympic spirit at these Games. Get out there and “give it a go,” as they say in London, sample and share the Olympic feast.

A total of 2.7 million people have visited the 22 live sites throughout the UK since the opening ceremony on July 27. Mostly, they are watching Olympic events on giant screens, when they aren't posing for pictures, imitating Usain Bolt's “To Di World” pose, one arm back, the other thrust to the sky, like a human lightning bolt.

Not everyone could get a ticket to Olympic Stadium when Bolt electrified the universe with his performances in the 100 and 200-metre sprints. The next best venue was across the Olympic grounds at Park Live, where up to 10,000 fans have been cramming onto the park space of the River Lea grounds, watching events and medalist interviews on the screen, in gatherings reminiscent of the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

“This is the best place to be, if you want to watch anything and feel that you're there,” says Linda Holt, a supervisor of volunteers working at Park Live. A petite woman in her 50s with short blonde hair, Holt hails from Norwich, northeast of Cambridge.

“You can hear the crowd from here, the sounds just rise out of the stadium,” Holt says. “I was fortunate to go and work there Thursday for the 4 X 100 relay and the sound follows the runners around the stadium - and resounds. It's amazing.”

The Park Live site at Olympic Park was no afterthought, but years in the making. The waterside ecosystem by the River Lea was, in Holt's words “a bit derelict.” The site was cleaned up, and marshes were planted, giving the water's edge the look of a natural wetland. At enormous cost, some two million tonnes of contaminated soil were washed, five kilometres of riverbank cleaned up, and 250,000 wetland plants, grasses and ferns were planted, as well as 9,500 shrubs.

To honour visiting Olympic nations, flora species representative of each participating country were planted on Park Live hillsides, overseen by a botanist from Sheffield University. Nothing was left to chance. Last summer, the grounds had a garden dress rehearsal, with plants checked to ensure they would flower just in time for the Olympics.

The end result is an attractive oasis, just beyond the frenzy of Olympic Park, where masses of spectators roam between venues, stopping to queue patiently for a souvenir T-shirt or a cornish pastie.

As beautiful as it was, there was never any guarantee it would work. But something about these Games has brought the British out of themselves. It hasn't hurt, of course, that Team GB had won 54 medals as I wrote this, including 25 gold. For a variety of reasons, the Brits aren't satisfied staying home to watch the Games on the family telly.

“I think they want to feel a part of it,” Holt says. “So many people can feel the atmosphere when they get here. They bring a picnic, they can sit and chat with friends, they can watch the Olympics on the big screen live - I think everybody now has got that Olympic bug.”

Holt helped form the Gamesmaker Choir, an impromptu band of choralists comprised of Olympic volunteers. Twenty of them performed on the Park Live bandshell stage on Thursday, singing popular songs by the Beatles and from London musicals. By Friday, they were getting play on local radio and TV.

As Holt spoke, it was Friday morning at Park Live. People slowly filed in to take up viewing spots on the grass while kayak races aired on the big screen. Teenagers sprawled out in the late morning sun.

The Horne family from the town of Skirpenbeck, near York, settled in near the top of the hill. Peter, his wife, Kay, and daughters Laura and Alice were just back from a vacation in France, and couldn't catch up with British Games news fast enough.

“Over there,” Kay complained, “the coverage is just ‘France, France, France.'”

(I know how she feels, having endured nearly three weeks of homespun Brit coverage.) “It's great to be a part of this,” Peter said, happily clutching four tickets for the bronze-medal field hockey match between GB and New Zealand.

“I wish we weren't watching Great Britain, to be honest, “ Peter said. “These are semifinal tickets and we hoped they'd be in the final.

“You know there's no ice in there, do you?” he said, teasing a Canadian reporter.

Peter Horne smiled, but what else is new at these Friendship Games.

“People are just lovely,” Holt says. “Everybody's chatted, and it's brought the community together. In London, often people don't talk to each other, particularly on the transport, the tube. You'll all sit there going to work, not speaking. But now, somebody will say, ‘did you see that event last night?' And they'll start talking.”

wscanlan@ottawacitizen.com