Avondale Playground

Set in a small lawn reserve on Breezes Road, Avondale Playground is a compact neighbourhood play space in Christchurch's eastern suburb of Avondale. It suits a quick after-school stop: one climbing fort, a row of swings and enough grass to run off steam.

Across Avondale Road to the west is cleared former red zone land, and Avondale's vacant red zone is open for walks and dog walking.¹²

Equipment

The centrepiece is a combination unit that the council's asset register dates to December 2010, with a straight slide, a tunnel slide, a fireman's pole, a chain climbing wall, a crawl tunnel, ladders, and a steering wheel and bead panels for little hands.³ The swing frame carries four seats, two of them infant cradles, and the register also lists monkey bars and a metal spring horse, which sits on its own small pad.³ All of it is on wood chip rather than rubber.⁴

The fort's platforms and pole suit confident preschoolers and primary-age kids, while the cradle swings and the horse cover toddlers.

Practical Info

Nothing is fenced, and the swing end of the wood chip comes within roughly 20 metres of Breezes Road, a main road with painted cycle lanes, so keep an eye on runners. A few mature trees beside the climbing unit give some shade. There is no car park, so plan on street parking, and a footpath crosses the lawn from the north-west corner.

The handful of Google reviewers keep it modest, calling it a nice small playground, and that is the right expectation. For tennis and basketball courts as well as a playground, Avondale Park on Mervyn Drive is under half a kilometre away,¹ and Emlyn Park Playground is a similar short walk south.