The Auckland Domain – Let Them Run

Last Saturday we met family at the Auckland domain for a picnic and chance for all the grandkids to run around and play together. I have been to the Museum recently and driven through the domain years ago but was really blown away by the sheer size and variety of things to see and do at Auckland’s “Central Park”.

For little boys who like to run, here are some of the places you should check out:

• The duck ponds
• The Wintergarden and fish ponds
• Large groves of trees (perfect for hide and seek)
• Huge fallen down tree (near duckpond and perfect for climbing on)
• Autumn trees (throw the leaves up in the air)
• Band Rotunda

Photos from the weekend below:

  

The kids had a real ball. No playgrounds…just their imaginations.

Playground of the Month Award

This playground doesn’t seem to have a name so I’m going to call it Pukeko Park (you’ll see why when you see the photos). It is in Dannemora/Botany South, just past the Buddist temple on the opposite side of the road. We have driven past many times but always in a hurry. We stopped to play for the first time last week and I was amazed.

The theme seems to be Pukekos and flaxes. It is linked by pathways and board walks, has 2 huge towers to climb, nests of concrete pukeko eggs, recycled metal flax spears with interactive bits at child height, underground stone forts, metal pukekos you can ride on and much more. There is huge rope tower older kids can clicmb on and a separate play area for younger kids with slides and swings too.

Birthdays, Bunnies and Butterflies

If you live in Auckland and are looking for a fun place to take kids of different ages, Butterfly Creek, next to Auckland Airport is fantastic. It is located on farmland and you can’t believe you are anywhere near a city or airport.

The Butterfly House

On the way to the butterfly house, you pass the big saltwater aquariums with lion fish, nemos (clown fish for the uninitiated), Dorys and lots of others the kids recognise. They are also setting up a tarantula exhibit, due to open soon. Inside the butterfly house is hot and steamy with over 700 free flying exotic butterflies. They zoom by, landing on plants and often on people too. You can see crysalis’ hanging up in rows and we even saw a butterfly hatching out. The kids were totally fascinated.

   

The Train

The train is a favourite with the boys in particular. The kids sit in open-air carriages and do 2 cicuits of the property and lake, going past birdlife, sheep and other animals from the farmyard. The driver blows the whistle as he comes through the tunnel too and there is a really coll little platform where you board then train. This visit the kids were a bit older so they got to go ina carriage on their own without me (very exciting).

The Farmyard

This consists of an outside farmyard with goats, piglets, cows, horses, chickens, alpacas and sheep and a big barn full of rabbits, guinea pigs, ducklings and chicks. Staff have a number of animals out at a time so kids can sit quietly on the haybales and pat a bunny or hold a guinea pig on their knees. It’s a great place to calm everyone down and the kids just love interacting with all the baby animals.

   

Marbles Still Roll – Indoors and Out

Having grown up with only a sister, I had never understood boys fascination with marbles. Nice colours, roll them along the ground, not too exciting… or so I thought.

Indoor Marble Runs

The first thing which happened was that we got given a marble run for Christmas. It is wooden and can be set up in a miriad of different ways. Following the instructions very carefully, I helped the boys set up a modestly sized run one rainy day at home. The first 2 test runs ended in disaster but we adjusted a couple of ramps, added plastic lids with a lip at the bottom of each chute to catch the marbles as they came hurtling down and we were away.

The kids (and myself I must admit) had so much fun popping the marbles in the top then watching them spiral down to go through a series of holes to eventually pop out first one side and then the other. We later progressed to seeing what happened when we put lots down at once (slight traffic jam in one spot) or putting a plug at the bottom of the spiral, filling the whole thing with marbles, then pulling the plug. Very exciting. I think I finally understand.

• Buy a Marble Run Kit like ours…
• Fridgits is a magnetic marble run for your fridge…

Outdoor Marble Runs

Last month we met some friends at Lloyd Elsmore Park in Pakuranga so the boys could practice their cycling on the paths and track criss-crossing the park. They had mentioned meeting at the Marble Run but, I have to admit, I had no real idea in my head what it would look like. We found it on a grassy knoll directly across from Howick Historic Village inside the park. It is a beautifully landscaped area with metal sculptures and a series of open metal pipe marble runs amongst the native plants and flaxes.

The boys popped their marbles (the big ones are best) in at the top and ran across wooden bridges, down steps and around garden ( sometimes over it in their excitement) to collect their marbles at the bottom. There was an occasionally search in the bushes for marbles which had gone off the rails but overall heaps of fun in a location including miles of bike tracks, great picnic spots, a FREE heated swimming pool complex and a really fun kids playground. Needless to say that we’ll be back.

DIY Marble Runs

Of course this led me to ask my husband if he could make a marble run in our garden (when we get one). He thinks yes, but possibly in wood and maybe raised off the ground slightly so bark and other bits can’t cause marble jams so easily. Will keep you up to date. A guy at Lloyd Elsmore mentioned that his wife, a landscape designer was creating a marble run in a client’s garden but I can’t find anything on the internet about it. I would love to see photos if anyone has any.

Apparently marble runs are very good for developing kids maths  and problem solving skills.

Visiting Taupo with Kids

We recently drove to Hawkes Bay to visit family and we always stop in Taupo on the way. We have lunch at McDonalds (yes we do occasionally go there) because it has an old DC10 aeroplane suspended above the playground. You can climb into it and actually eat your lunch up there looking out at the lake, tops of shops etc. The next best thing to flying.

Next stop is the Taupo AC Baths. Thermal pools so hotter than your average public pool, but also a lot more interesting. The inside pool has a kids pool, slides and 2 channels you can swim along to get to the outside pool. You never have to hop out and get cold. Outside is a swing rope over the pool, different shower nozzles and lots of little nooks and crannies.

Other favourite spots are the lake for feeding ducks and swans, Huka Falls and the Dam. We have only stayed in Taupo once but plan to do some proper exploring one day and maybe a spot of trout fishing.

For more information on visiting Lake Taupo, go to http://www.laketauponz.com/

Kids Movie Premiere at Auckland Zoo

This sounds like an event my boys would love. 

Auckland Zoo will be hosting the New Zealand Charity Premiere of Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who! on Friday 11 April 2008. This is the latest major blockbuster movie from the creators of Ice Age (one of our personal favourites) and is based on the Dr Seuss book.

This will be the first outdoor movie screening to be held at the zoo, with a 18m wide outdoor screen situated at the Band Rotunda area. Proceeds from this event will go to the Auckland Zoo Conservation Fund to help animals in the wild. There will be special animal encounters before the movie and seats are limited so get your tickets quickly.

More information and tickets…

New Zealand Kids Books – Cork on the Ocean

This is the most beautifully written and illustrated book about the adventures of a cork on the ocean. It reads like poetry and seems to cast a spell over the boys when I read it to them. They especially love the flying fish, the shark from the deep, the octopus and the mermaid riding a dolphin of glass. The illustrations are simple yet perfectly capture the movement of the waves and water. 

My Mum got a hardcover copy signed by New Zealand author Mark Sommmerset so it is now a much treasured addition to our library.  It seems that if you find a special Cork on the Ocean bottle on the beach, you can claim a Cork on the Ocean book as your prize. What a great idea! Find out more on Mark’s website at www.corkvoyages.com.

Mark tells me that the sequel to Cork on the Ocean is due out in October this year.

Buy Cork on the Ocean (NZ$).

Model Truck Show – Boys Day Out

Over Easter we went to the New Zealand Model Truck National Show in Pukekohe. This year, it was hosted by the Auckland Model Truck Club, but it is held in a different NZ location each year.

Not somewhere I ever thought I’d spend the day but for my boys, it was wonderful. Heaps of big rigs parked outside for the kids to inspect. Inside were thousands of model truck collections, kit-sets made up, models to buy and a truck film too. There was a model train village… the kids got their own remote to control one of the trains and there was a remote control helicopter occasionally flying around the hall. The boys didn’t want to leave and that included the big boys.

I would love to hear from other people who enjoyed the show. See comments below from organiser, Sue, about viewing photos of show competition winners and next years show venue.

Our favourite (and longest lasting) trucks, diggers and tractors are all Siku. After years of buying other brands we now go straight to the Siku range online or at a toy shop.  Here are a couple of we like:

• John Deere Tractor
• Trailer to go on the back
• Siku Hyraulic Excavator

There is also an amazing range of Siku trucks on Amazon, some I have never seen before. If you’re looking for something different, this might be the place to go.

MOTAT Paradise for Boys

Last weekend, we took our eldest son (almost 5) to MOTAT (Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology). He loves trucks, tractors, cars, trains and anything else with an engine so MOTAT sounded like paradise to him.

The first thing which caught his eye was the giant locomotive train which you can climb on board and pretend to drive. We had a look around the interactive area next. Favourites were the mirror which makes you look really really short and really really wide and the electricity display where you turn the handle to make the lightbulb light up or the fan start turning.

There was an exhibition on Special Effects in movies so we moved some lego around, then watched it speed up as a movie, select a cartoon movement sequence, then watched it play back and watched ourselves on tv walking across a swing bridge to get a way from hot lava coming from a volcano background.

There is a space ship ride currently at MOTAT which was fantastic. Once inside, it starts to shake and the screen on takeoff shows us slowly lifting up into the air above MOTAT befor taking off to the South Island. We then saw glaciers, mountains, waterfalls (we got sprayed with water mist), followed a jetboat and a helicopter and finally landed at MOTAT again. It was very realistic and Kyle kept asking me if we were really flying.

We didn’t get time to see all the bigger machines and planes at MOTAT2 (on the other side of the Zoo) but have a free tram ride ticket to use next time.

Visit the MOTAT website…

Weekend Fun for Kids and Dogs

If you’ve got a dog who is part of your family, it can be really disappointing to discover that a huge number of the places your kids would love to visit, do not allow dogs. Adding this to the fact that dogs need daily walks and kids (particularly boys) need to get outside and run around, means we usually have to compromise and go somewhere less than ideal.

Totara Park, Auckland

However, this weekend we discovered a place where kids and dogs can go wild. Totara Park (122 hectares) in Manurewa is adjacent to the Botanic Gardens. The entire park, complete with bush tracks, wooden bridges, playgrounds and swimming pool allows dogs on a leash plus some bush tracks are off-leash areas. Coincidentally, Totara Park is where we had all our school outings when I was at primary school all those years ago.

More info on the Totara Park swimming pool…

We parked in the main carpark near the swimming pool and first explored the amazing wooden playground with tower-type forts, roll walls and various types of ladders to get up and down. Past the outdoor swimming pool (still open for another month), we followed the bush track leading to the other playground. The best part of this playground was a slide which started at the top of the hill and went all the way to the bottom. The boys had great fun sitting on their shirts so they could slide faster.

Tried a longer bush track after that and eventually got to the far end of the Botanic Gardens, where we had a quick wander around the Potter Kids Garden. We’re going back soon for a swim and a picnic.

Download Totara Park brochure with map…