Help us save and restore the iconic mountain playground!

The Bowen Crescent playground is a perfect spot to enjoy views of both the moana (ocean) and Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki) and provide the space to come together as a community for our families, visitors and tourists alike.

The playground is in dire need of replacement. The current Bowen Cres playground or ‘mountain’ playground (as it is affectionately known) is currently cordoned off due to safety hazards.

After many discussions with South Taranaki District Council, DOC & Taranaki Iwi and our community we have come to an agreement with STDC to replace the mountain playground with a safer mountain and ocean themed playground for all ages to enjoy.

The mountain structure itself is incredibly close to our community’s hearts as it has been there for 50 years.

The original plan we came up with was a larger scale playground which has now been downscaled to fit into the current footprint of the playground. This will be built by Playground Creations based in Hamilton.

This playground will redevelop the existing mountain with a rubber pour, wider slide, tunnel, safer climbing options and talking tubes on either side of the mountain for children and adults alike to interact. The mountain will be the main feature of the Bowen Crescent playground and will also showcase our beach lifestyle by having two surfboards on springs made by our local Opunake surfboard designer CSA surfboards, and a rope swing hammock. There will also be rubber half spheres in the ground that can be used for seating and balancing. These will be in the colours of our environment - greens and white for our maunga, blue for the moana and black sand for our west coast. We also hope to include a new three bay swing set.

The original plans also included a waka to represent the Kurahaupo waka, so we have left space for this and we would like to include this as a phase two of this project to allow time to work with Taranaki Iwi to find a local carver and also create signage to bring the story of this waka to the land.

South Taranaki District Council are contributing funds to help with this project with the community to apply for funding of the remainder. So far we have received contributions from Taranaki Coastal Board - Local Discretionary Fund, St Pauls Op Shop Opunake, Sinclair Electrical & Refrigeration, and Opunake Playcentre which has been wonderful. We also have current applications with STDC Discretionary Fund and Pub Charity that are in its final stages, so we hope to hear soon that we have had successful applications. We hope we can build this playground in December 2021 ahead of another busy Opunake summer so any contributions received, large or small, will bring us closer to being able to complete this project. Thank you so very much.