106A Ireland Road, Mount Wellington, Auckland 1060
A tidal crater lagoon with a flat loop, a footbridge, and birds working the shallows.
Spending our whole lives in Tāmaki Makaurau,we've come to appreciate the great parks in our beautiful city, and wanted to share our knowledge and general information to help others: whether the playground is fenced, the parking is a mission, if there are toilets.. a general hub to help you find a good park.
Prams and access, scenery, toilets and water, parking, safety. These five decide whether a visit works, whoever you came with.
Playground, picnic and BBQ, and shade for family parks. Off-leash and walking tracks for dogs. Food and coffee nearby for a date. Nothing else counts.
The overall number averages whichever factors apply. Playground, prams and access, food and coffee nearby, and picnic and BBQ count half. They say more about how you’re visiting than about the park itself.
Every factor has a written 1, 3 and 5 to score against. A 1 on toilets and water means nothing on site. A 5 means an accessible one by the playground, and a fountain that works. So a number means the same thing in every park.
Nearly every park here has had its facilities read off a council or operator page, then dated and linked. The handful we haven’t got to yet say so on the page.
All eleven factors are written out at the full scale, inside How we rate a park.
It averages the factors that apply to that park: five shared ones, plus a few specific to whether it is a family, dog or scenic spot. Four of them count half as much as the rest, being playground, prams and access, food and coffee nearby, and picnic and BBQ. Those say more about how you are visiting than about the park itself.
That the facilities were read off a council or park-operator source on the date shown, and we linked what we used.
No. There is no sponsorship, no advertising and no paid placement anywhere on this guide. We try to maintain the integrity of this site as a hub for nature lovers.
Roughly once a week, when we sit down and review them. Most scores come from our own visits, though a few lean on online reviews or anecdotal opinion where we haven’t been ourselves. We try to stay as objective as we can.
106A Ireland Road, Mount Wellington, Auckland 1060
A tidal crater lagoon with a flat loop, a footbridge, and birds working the shallows.
Oratia Drive, Glen Eden, Auckland 0602
A large west Auckland sports park with native bush and a stream along one edge.
Dryden Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland 1021
A big sloping green with one of the most reliable off leash crowds in the inner west.
180 Weymouth Road, Manurewa, Auckland 2102
Wide flat playing fields with a fenced dog run tucked into one corner.
32 Glover Road, St Heliers, Auckland 1071
A volcanic explosion crater turned into a wide open off leash green.
254 Point England Road, Point England, Auckland 1072
A huge open coastal reserve on the Tāmaki Estuary, with room for every dog in the neighbourhood.
98 Abbotts Way, Meadowbank, Auckland 1050
A restored wetland with a flat loop, and pūkeko that will walk right past you.
6 Baddeley Avenue, Kohimarama, Auckland 1071
Wide flat playing fields with a generous off leash area, a block back from the beach.
31/35 Cresta Avenue, Beach Haven, Auckland 0626
Broad flat fields in Beach Haven, dropping down to the mangrove edge of the upper harbour.
Council Terrace, Birkenhead, Auckland 0627
A sheltered tidal bay with a flat lawn, a playground and the harbour bridge in view.
200 Meola Road, Western Springs, Auckland 1022
The inner west's best known dog headland, out along a lava reef. Bring a towel.
50 Western Springs Road, Mount Albert, Auckland 1022
Flat fields under Ōwairaka with a well used off leash corner.
465 Te Atatu Road, Te Atatū Peninsula, Auckland 0610
A big, wild coastal park of grass and saltmarsh, with skylarks overhead and the city skyline across the water.
41A Wilsher Crescent, Henderson, Auckland 0612
Open fields in the middle of Henderson, plugged straight into the Twin Streams path.
Marina View Drive, West Harbour, Auckland 0618
Rolling fields above the upper harbour with a long off leash run.
249 Orakei Road, Remuera, Auckland 1050
A boardwalk loop right around a tidal basin, under the railway viaduct.
2 Jack Hinton Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632
A large sports complex with a well kept fenced dog park, safely away from the pitches.
44-66 West End Road, Westmere, Auckland 1022
A flat tidal inlet with a steady off leash crowd and a playground right on the water.
86 Kinross Street, Blockhouse Bay, Auckland 0600
Gravel loops, a creek to get wet in, and a proper dog obstacle course with tunnels and a balance beam.
63 Arundel Street, Mount Roskill, Auckland 1041
A long green corridor following Te Auaunga Ōakley Creek, with a sealed path the whole way through.
Beach Road, Castor Bay, Auckland 0620
Off leash around the clock, all year, if you can face the stairs down to the sand.
180-186 Sanders Road, Paremoremo, Auckland 0793
A large fully fenced dog paddock, which is the rare thing here and worth the drive.
44 Station Road, Papatoetoe, Auckland 2025
A neighbourhood park inside a volcanic crater, with a lake and a fenced dog area.
1110 Great South Road, Mount Wellington, Auckland 1060
A low volcanic cone with wide open grass, a walking loop and views to both harbours.
Old Lake Road, Devonport, Auckland 0624
A long beach facing east, with generous off leash hours and a playground behind the sand.
122/112 Glendale Road, Glen Eden, Auckland 0602
Flat Glen Eden fields with a fenced dog run that keeps everyone off the pitches.
320/336 Riddell Road, Glendowie, Auckland 1071
Old farmland gone half wild, with rough paddocks, bush tracks and long grass.
34 Binsted Road, New Lynn, Auckland 0600
Whau River fields with the riverside walkway and mangrove boardwalks running through.
51 Ayr Street, Parnell, Auckland 1052
A surprisingly wild bush gully hidden behind Newmarket, with a flat field at the bottom for the dogs.
Ōtara, Auckland 2023
Restored waterways linking a chain of reserves right through Ōtara to the estuary.
113A Duke Street, Mount Roskill, Auckland 1042
Flat playing fields on a quarry floor, with the last of the cone rising sharply above.
113 Bayswater Avenue, Bayswater, Auckland 0622
Flat peninsula fields with harbour on two sides and the city skyline across the water.
Wiri, Auckland 2025
A big open farm reserve on the Manukau, with long gravel tracks and room to disappear.
180 Meola Road, Western Springs, Auckland 1022
Wide open fields between Meola Road and the harbour edge.
150 Parkhurst Road, Parakai 0830
A big bush reserve with a creek, kauri overhead and tracks running through to the next valley.
Grange Road, Mount Eden, Auckland 1024
A small volcanic dog park with city views and the Dog from Footrot Flats painted on the water tank.
58-62 Munroe Road, Henderson, Auckland 0614
A lake loop in the middle of the suburbs, off leash the whole way round.
Huia Road, Cornwallis, Auckland 0604
Off leash all year on wide flat sand, with a stream for the dogs that would rather not face the sea.
Balmain Road, Chatswood, Auckland 0626
A secluded little dog beach at the bottom of a bush walk. Fine for dogs, not for you.
Linwood Avenue, Western Springs, Auckland 1022
A public golf course with new parkland and a restored creek path opening up alongside it.
36 Sylvan Park Avenue, Milford, Auckland 0620
A shaded lakefront off leash park on the quiet side of Pupuke.
Vauxhall Road, Narrow Neck, Auckland 0624
A clifftop military reserve with wide lawns, bunkers to poke around, and a path down to the beach.
38 Saint Peters Street, Northcote, Auckland 0627
A flooded volcanic crater with a flat loop of boardwalk and mangrove, and birds the whole way round.
7/51 Walker Road, Point Chevalier, Auckland 1022
Flat fields beside Te Auaunga Ōakley Creek with a busy off leash corner.
35 Mount Saint John Avenue, Epsom, Auckland 1051
A quiet grassy cone the locals treat as an off leash secret.
17-23 Exmouth Street, Eden Terrace, Auckland 1021
The inner city's small fenced dog park, tucked in behind Symonds Street.
10 Peterson Road, Mount Wellington, Auckland 1060
Fields on the estuary edge, with a walkway following the water round to Panmure Basin.
126 Patiki Road, Avondale, Auckland 1026
Flat peninsula fields on the Whau, with a quiet estuary edge and few crowds.