Garden Walks, Jo's Monday Walks, Life at No.22, Walks

Local Walk – Te Puna Quarry Park

Suzanne

A 32-ha site about 1/2 hour’s drive from home on a good low-traffic day was once an old, overgrown quarry and is now a beautiful public park. After almost 70 years as a quarry, it was closed in 1979, and for some unknown reason, the local council decided they might reopen it. A local woman didn’t want the return of the constant blasting and all the heavy traffic as she thought there were better things to be done with the land. She was correct.

The entrance (kūwaha)

With this foresight, the Te Puna Quarry Park Society was formed in 1993. Within three years, the first newsletter went out, and the first work day cleared gorse, wattle, buddleia hakea and plenty of dumped rubbish from what is now the visitor carpark.

The woman who started this is Shirley Sparks, who was awarded a QSM in 2005 and is now patron of the Quarry Park Society. Once Shirley had the working group organised, a master plan was commissioned, and it is still being used in the continually developing life of this park.

The Footpath – boots and all

It divides the park, which climbs several rocky terraces and essentially has no topsoil, into ‘rooms’, including a heritage rose garden, butterfly garden, sensory garden, herb garden, and group plantings, including orchids, bromeliads, fuchsias, Japanese maples, nikau, cabbage trees (featuring more than ten varieties), magnolias, and native plants of New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia.

It is always a pleasure to view the large, steep area on the park’s eastern side, as over the past 13 years, it’s been cleared of pines and replanted with natives. Volunteers have put in tracks and signs and tried to stay ahead of weeds, including wild kiwifruit, Taiwanese cherry, and asparagus fern, as the regenerating bush grows.

In addition to pest plants, volunteers have battled rats, possums, mustelids, rabbits, and feral goats. Unfortunately, rabbits have returned, and gardeners have resorted to wire mesh cages to protect plants until their numbers are reduced. On the positive side, bird life has flourished, and tui, kereru, fantails, wax eyes, grey warblers, and California quail are regularly sighted.

Please leave only footprints; take only photos.

As well as the garden trails, the park has many artworks, from a giant stone dragon to musical chimes made from recycled materials, from a mosaic life-size couple to wooden carvings by local Māori. It is a park that is a community project in the environmental arts, and it is easy to realise that the sculpture plays a large part in this fantastic park.

The Dragon, by Roger Bullot, was created with Hinuera Stone and concrete.
Around, we go on the sculpture trail with a view
Artist: Steve Molloy “Synchronicity” – steel
It seems you can be viewed and enjoyed anywhere you stand tall in the Western Bay of Plenty – Mauao.
Artist: Bruce Winter “Star Turn” created with steel

This park is not only a pleasure to our visual senses, but it has also developed a building that is hired out for functions and terraced seating for the amphitheatre, which now holds regular concerts when our unpredictable weather allows visitors to burst out in song.

Strolling around Te Puna Quarry Park has been on my to-do list for a while now, so I enjoyed setting aside a few hours on a warmish day to stretch my legs around nature; it truly is a park to indulge all our senses in a pleasurable way.

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Published by Suzanne

I'm a lover of creativity and movement, expressed through photography, words, travel and sports. . . . . . .

29 thoughts on “Local Walk – Te Puna Quarry Park”

    1. Thanks Eilene and yes a woman with vision and more importantly the energy to see that vision become reality. I think it is much harder to keep that vision moving forward and luckily for us the community has achieved that. Hopefully, for many years to come.

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  10. What a fabulous community initiative! The volunteers have clearly done an amazing job 😀 I love the art works too, especially the stone dragon and Synchronicity, while the entrance is fantastic too!

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