Your responses best playgrounds
Playgrounds in Picton, Nelson, Timaru, Wanaka and Dunedin have excited special mention, and Christchurch offers plenty of choices.
My kids love St Albans playground and Burwood playground, and also Thompsons Park. We live in Bexley so we travel some distance to get to our kids favourite parks…and its worth it.
T M Kaa %26 C P Goodwillie
We like Ashburton Gardens playground and so do our Aussie nephews/grandsons.
Joan and Jo-Ann O’Loughlin
For Christchurch, Spencer Park. For the South Island, Queens Park, Invercargill.
Erin Bradley
We all love Spencer Park playground. It has a great variety of playthings, ranging from swings, the digger in the sandpit, huge climbing nets, various flying foxes, climbing nets and the spinning seat. As well as having great facilities, BBQs, toilets, there’s a paddling pool, as well as a huge park for cricket and touch. The beach and Burwood forest are within a short walking distance for swimming and mountain biking. It is just a huge adventure playground with fun for the whole family regardless of age. And all this is just 20 mins drive from the city. On a fine day it is the best place to go for a family get-together and a picnic.
McNeill family
We are playground aficionados having two little girls (ages 4 and 3). We are in Nelson, NZ, for a year and have lived in the US
before coming here.
Firstly, the playgrounds in NZ are just terrific. Most places have a
pretty good playground (some better than others), but in general all of
them are of high quality and varied enough. Compared to the US (or
India) this is playground paradise for kids.
Some of our favorite playgrounds in the South Island include:
1. Tahunanui Beach playground: This has got three sections for different
kids’ range and has got cool features like a castle slide and a rocket
slide. A few spin tables, a concrete train, a spring horse. The beach is
a few steps away if the kids want to go for a quick swim.
2. Kaiteriteri Beach playground: Relatively new and big. Lots of nice things including a spider web and some nice “hang on and ride” toys.
Also has a zip line for older kids. The floor is quite spongy and hence good for the kids to run around. The beach is across the road for easy
access.
3. Picton: a nice playground. seeing the boats go in and out is a good treat for the kids (and parents).
Donald Lobo
My favourite playgrounds are: Heathcote - lovely carvings of birds, exploration paths, toilet and water fountain; Barrington for variety, and beams for balancing (not seen anywhere else locally) and toilet (there, but unseen); Risingholme Park for shelter, exploring, flowering bushes in spring, toilet and water fountain with a step for little ones; Hansons Park and St Martins School Park (no toilet).
Nana
Definitely the new one beside the Mosgiel Public Library, Mosgiel, Dunedin.
Craig and Jacqui Chirnside
Mosgiel’s new playground must rate as one of the best. It’s great to have such a diverse range of options in one place _ sandworks and under-5
area, spacenet, skate park, fort, free barbeques, gardens and cycle ways. It also has a wheelchair-able swing which is great to see. It’s been fantastic to see the playground go in and see it become a real asset to the local community and wider Dunedin area.
Melanie Woodcock, Mosgiel
Definitely the Wanaka lakeside - it’s hard to drag the kids away from that one. And the Ashburton Domain is a must on a trip down south.
Laura Cameron
Call me a grumpy old man, but I cannot vote for any of those playgrounds with the modern pole and plastic stuff. Although good in many respects, they always set a cross-bar at the
very top of the slide, at head-height. That is: kiddy head-height. The number of times I’ve seen kids severely clobber themselves on those things goes beyond count. Give me one of those big old brass slides any day. Man, they could sizzle! And I never once saw a kid get injured on them. My vote is for the playground in the Botanic Gardens (purely for sentimental reasons.
Ged Maybury
Still a Christchurch boy at heart
Our best park is Thompson Park, North New Brighton. A brilliant park with lots of bars to swing on, keeps all 3 age groups
amused - which must be good for large families. %26#91;See pic%26#93; This is my son’s favourite - the round bit spins around, well halfway at
least - maybe it could use some oil.
Christchurch definitely has the best parks of the places I have been in
NZ, so it’s nice to see an article which almost praises the City Council
for a change.
Bill and Judy, Christchurch
Our family loves the children’s playground in Caroline Bay, Timaru. It’s
huge. And the little train rides for $1 are always popular too.
In Christchurch, Spencer Park is hard to beat. We also like the flying
fox at Heathcote Valley.
The Taits, Spreydon
My 4 year old daughter Jade loves going to the playground on the Picton foreshore. They have all the usual swings, slides and climbing frames but also a paddling pool. She can play in the waves, build sandcastles and collect pebbles at the beach. We also fly a kite or run around on the grass areas, and to top it all off is the Picton Volunteer Railway Society train ride (perfect for the littlies) and only 20 cents a ride, and they get to go around twice. They also hire out mini yachts at 20 cents for as long as you like.
Aroha Lawson, Sockburn
This is absolutely bizarre to see your article in today’s Press. Our family
has just returned from a week of camping at Glendhu Bay near Lake Wanaka and
while we were there we visited the lakeside playground. It had fantastic
equipment, probably the best I’ve ever seen. I was so excited I was
determined to find out how where to get this equipment and then ask CCC if
they would be interested in putting it in some playgrounds in Christchurch.
This afternoon I contacted the Wanaka Service Centre to enquire. The
equipment is made by a company called ‘Kompan’ in Denmark. Their website is
Kompan.com.
So I would have to say the Wanaka’s lakeside playground would by far be the
best I’ve ever come across and we visit them very frequently.
In
Christchurch, ones that we love are Hansens Park (we recently had my 2 year
old son’s birthday party there with 80 people), Hollis Ave, Cashmere Road
(by Coffee Culture - desperately needs revamping though). Francis Park in
Westmorland is great too, having a tennis and basketball court is a plus.
Playgrounds are brilliant and we are always looking for different ones to
challenge and excite our little boy.
Thanks for the good article - very apt timing.
Rochelle Evans
Over the summer one of our favourite playgrounds was the ” Dinosaur ” playground by the lakeside in Wanaka. This has been fully upgraded with fantastic new equipment sitting alongside the old Dinosaur slide. It caters for toddlers right through to 10 year olds at least and has the lake, ducks, swiimming right there as well as the food options across the road.
Our other favourite was Broad Park at Waimairi which has fantastic climbing apparatus suitable for all ages, the old traditional play things and flying foxes. Spencer Park also was a fantastic day trip for the kids because of the paddling pool, flying fox and beautifully landscaped and integrated playground for all ages.
As a resident of Sumner, we regularly frequent Scarborough Park. While the proximity to the beach is great and the toddlers pool good in the Summer, the playground is very limited in it’s play facilities. It has the old big slide, swings and horse, the round about has been taken out and there is one slide and climbing area that is suitable for younger children but that is all. It doesn’t have climbing facilities, monkey bars or any modern spinners or such. Given this park is a busy destination park for many families coming out to the beach as well as for so many local children, it is disappointing that it hasn’t been upgraded for so many years.
Marion O’Shannessey, Sumner
Tags: advent, amp, bushes, grass, landscape, pool0
