Playground Kaukapakapa

Kaukapakapa's playground, in rural north-west Auckland, sits beside the Memorial Hall on State Highway 16, and the village built it themselves: families were driving 20 minutes to the nearest playground, so the residents' association raised most of the money and the Rodney Local Board added $78,000.¹ It was finished in July 2020.² Travellers heading north have found it too, as a pit stop with a big car park and clean public toilets.

Equipment

This is a natural play space on the edge of a kahikatea glade, which the council called the Swamp Forest play space.¹ Kids follow bark paths and timber stepping logs through native grasses, crawl through a tunnel set into a rubber-coated mound, and swing along a traverse of hanging rings above soft turf humps. The design listed a double slide, triple swings, a balance bridge and monkey bars,³ and the swing frame by the trees includes a blue basket swing. The 2019 plans also promised a hidden maze and a carved eel; the eel and the carved bench seats facing a ring of boulders were made by inmates at the Northland Region Corrections Facility.¹ It works for under-fives exploring at their own pace and for school-age kids on the rings.

Practical Info

Surfacing is mostly bark. One parent noted that after the cyclone the bark had not been topped up, leaving stones and weed matting showing under the equipment, so check the fall zones. Tall trees back the swings, but the climbing area is open to the sun. Picnic tables sit on the concrete paths, the toilets are a short walk away, and the sealed car park is large. The hall, next to Kaukapakapa School, hosts the village market on the third Sunday of each month,⁴ and a small sports field is alongside. The town is about 12 km from Helensville on SH16,⁵ which makes this a good break on the drive to the Kaipara coast or further north.