Activity Category: Outside

Harcourt Park, Upper Hutt

A great playground within a lovely park with a lot to do for the whole family. There’s an area for bigger kids that allows climbing, sliding, balancing and swinging skills to be tested. There’s also a good long and reasonably fast flying fox. Just across a grassy area there a…

Pukekura Park, New Plymouth

With 52 hectares of land, there is a lot to do in Pukekura Park! There’s a playground with some interesting equipment; a waterwheel and channel for controlling the water, tunnels through a little hill, a couple of slides, the rope structure for climbing on (as pictured above), mini trampolines, flying fox…

The Coastal Walkway, New Plymouth

This is a 12km walkway along the coast from the port, through central New Plymouth, to Bell Block. It’s all fully paved and open to cyclists, so great for kids on bikes or scooters as well as being buggy friendly. It’s also good for walking dogs on leads. To check out dog…

Stoney Oaks Wildlife Park, Inglewood, Taranaki

This farm park is home to an interesting range of farm animals that kids can interact with if they want. You can go into the animal paddocks and pat or brush them. There are also bottles that can be bought for $5 if kids are interested in feeding the animals. The…

Oakura River and Beach, Taranaki

There’s a swimming spot that is popular with those in the know just north of Oakura in the Oakura River. There are toilets nearby, picnic tables and places to park. The river opens out to the beach, which is one of the more kid friendly ones in the Taranaki area,…

Todd Energy Aquatic Centre, New Plymouth

This is made up of year round indoor pools and outdoor pools which open in the summer months. The indoor complex includes a main pool with lane swimming and wave pool, a tarzan rope and inflatable toys. This pool is 28 degrees. There’s a separate toddler pool with a bubbles…

Levin Adventure Park

This is a great playgound for all ages with separate fenced toddlers section (which is under shade sails) but also areas that should challenge pre teens and an adult fitness section that teenagers might want to try. There are clean toilets, a coffee cart in the carpark and a room…

Flat Hills Cafe and Tourist Park, Rangitikei, Manawatu

This is more than just a café, as Flat Hills is also home to friendly animals that can be fed, bouncy castles, a maze and a small playground area (although the equipment is probably better suited to kids up to about 5 years). There’s also lots of space for kids…

Memorial Park, Taihape

There is space to run around and benches/picnic tables if you’re looking to take a break from a car journey on SH1 south of the Desert Road. While there is a small playground at Memorial park it is quite tired but just next door at Taihape Area School there’s concrete…

Tongariro Domain, Taupo

The Domain is home to Taupo’s largest playground with some interesting equipment. There’s a space net with a ‘waggle bridge’, swings and a good selection of equipment suitable for smaller kids like a collection of pods that kids can climb into and then exit via a short slide. There’s also…