Grey Lynn Park

Grey Lynn Park
By The Auckland Psychogeographer

At over ten hectares, Grey Lynn Park is one the wealth of suburban recreational parks that Auckland is lucky enough to boast, and an enduring local favourite and flourishing greenway.

In pre-European times this area was a stream - Opoutukeha - that formed a boundary between Ngati Riu and Ngati Huarere lands, and was part of a system of fishing stations, gardens and flax-gathering places that ran to the coast, through present-day Hukanui park and Cox’s Bay Reserve.

As colonialism and suburbanisation advanced in the late 19th century, the area was given over mostly to cattle-grazing, the land being both too damp and steep for house-building, before inevitably becoming an open sewer and rubbish dump. Gradually the land was drained, the stream piped underground and playing fields established, with the venerable Richmond Rovers Rugby League Club set up their HQ in 1913.

Today the park sees constant sporting and school group use, has two off-leash areas for dogs, a lifeguard-manned paddling pool (in summer), plus basketball / tennis court, numerous playgrounds, a ‘pump track’ for cyclists and ramp for skateboarders, and various keep-fit devices. A series from the Auckland Council sculpture collection entitled ‘Sculptura’ showcases artists who have lived and worked in the neighbourhood, and is largely found within and around a small native bush area on one of the eastern valleys. Artists include Barbara Ward, Inia Taylor, Charlotte Fisher, Giuseppe Romeo and Fatu Feu’u.

The park is famously used annually for the Grey Lynn Park Festival in summer, a busy family-friendly event of food, craft, music and togetherness. There’s a long-form sense of cultivation in this place, from the flax-gathering, eel-hunting and farming of Maori, the industrious back-gardening of Europeans, and the present busy eccentricity of this corner of affluent-lefty Auckland.

Grey Lynn Park features many native trees, including some impressive pohutukawa - and Local Board plans will ensure new battalions of cabbage trees and nikau palms to improve drainage and soil integrity - as well numerous cheerful oak trees, pines, many eucalyptus and a thriving thicket of bamboo.

The numerous entrances to the park are full of charm, surprise and wit - there’s so much pleasure to be had from viewing one location in so many ways, winding through the eclectic architecture of the neighbourhood and coming on another enticing view. At the foot of Rose Road, there’s an abundantly flourishing apple tree, the easy-to-miss upper Elgin Street entrance offers a great place to sit, looking out widely over the back playing fields, while the entrance where Baildon Road meets Schofield Street has sweeping late afternoon sunset views.

The sculpture walk entrance on the corner of Dickens Street and Rose Road is a great way to enter the park, with a half-hidden neighbourhood tree house and swing and the odd humorous discarded Christmas tree accompanying artworks that are gently narrative but also numinous - Barbara Ward’s Three Women chief among them. Have their faces eroded, or been removed, like the Sphinx? Mute and mysterious, it’s a brilliant work for a public space.

On the other side of the park, a few homes even have their own gates built into enormous hedges - an irresistible hint of the old country, perhaps - and affirm the park’s role as a low-key, iconic part of the community. The neighbourhood’s back yard - within earshot of the CBD.

Image Credits: Celia Walker and The Auckland Psychogeographer