reported speech

hello,
I've got a question related to reported speech.
As a theory says if you report somebody's sentence expressed originally in simple past, you should report it in past perfect. For example:
" I played football yesterday " -direct speech
He said he had played football the day before - reported speech

My question is:
Do you, native speakers, normally use that pattern. I mean is this natural for You. Especially in the case when you want to report a story which somebody told You ( and that person used simple past , which I believe is most popular tense to tell stories from the past )

for example:
"Yesterday I went to the park. The day was beatiful. I sat down and ..etc" said Mark

and now imagine you want to report Mark's story to Your friend.
Would You say:
Mark told me that he had gone to the park the day before. The day had been beatiful. He had sat down and...


is this natural?
please answer
thanx

Mark told me that he had gone to the park the day before. The day had been beatiful. He had sat down and...

'Mark told me that he had been to the park the day before. The day was beautiful, he sat down and...'

Colloquially, we wouldn't relate this as Reported Speech. We would say something like:
"Guess what happened to Mark yesterday. He went to the/this park, and he was sitting down when this girl..."
The shift of tense and strictly sticking to the original, would be a formal report.