Longview Drive Playground

A dual flying fox is the reason to detour to this new playground on Longview Drive in Lake Hāwea, a short drive from Wānaka. It sits on a reserve in the growing Longview subdivision with the mountains behind it, and one visitor found the kit a cut above the generic set most towns get.

Equipment

The Queenstown Lakes District Council asset register lists a double cableway flying fox, a three-bay swing set, a cabin tower with a duo slide and a single slide, a Speed Gyro roundabout, a springy frog and a spring rocker, a climbing cube, monkey bars and timber stilts.¹ In photos the tower is clad in tall timber slats, a long grey tube slide runs down from its upper deck, and a wide double slide drops from the lower level onto a rubber landing pad. The rest of the ground is bark.

One reviewer found it best suited to smaller kids, but the flying fox, monkey bars and stilts give school-age kids plenty to do too.

History

The developer of the Longview subdivision installed the playground, and the council register dates the equipment to November 2023.¹² When the local playground committee formed a few years earlier, Lake Hāwea's only public playground was at Peter Fraser Park, and the committee moved its next project to Hāwea Flat partly because this one landed so close to Sentinel Park.²

Practical Info

This is a new neighbourhood still under construction, so expect building sites, young plantings and open lawn rather than mature trees. Our photos show no shade sail and no fence, and Longview Drive runs close by. Food caravans on the reserve, including a coffee caravan beside the development's sales office, make it an easy coffee stop.³ One visitor noted there is no lake view from here. For a second stop, Peter Fraser Playground is about 1.3 km away.