Disused and forgotten, the historic little buildings of Henderson's Tui Glen Reserve will soon sparkle again. Joanna Davies reports.
Jan Cherrington remembers Tui Glen Reserve as a busy community of campervans.
"It was quite a sociable place, and we were quite friendly with some of the people who lived here," she says.
"One of the old residents still comes here every day to feed the cats that people couldn't take with them when the motor camp was closed."
There is little left to mark the history of the Henderson campsite as one of New Zealand's first motor parks. It opened in the early 1920s and closed in 2001.
But Auckland Council plans to save the small cabins in the reserve, some of which have been empty for years.
"This blue one is a cutie, but it looks so bereft," says Mrs Cherrington as she points to a small cabin. "Some of them are quite small and I'm not sure what they would be used for, but when they are left empty they are just going to get damaged."
Mrs Cherrington believes one of the larger cabins, Manuka Shade, could be large enough for a tea room.
Ten cabins will be restored in a project that is a legacy of the departed Waitakere City Council - to turn Tui Glen Reserve into a park. The former council planned to spend $240,000 restoring the cabins, and a further $165,000 to demolish and rebuild the park's toilets.
"More and more people are using the park for cycling and walking their dogs, and people come and sit on the jetty quite often," says Mrs Cherrington.
The jetty was used by passengers boarding boat rides in the campground's heyday and was restored by Waitakere City Council in 2005.
Trevor Pollard, president of West Auckland Historical Society, remembers going to the park as a boy on Sunday school trips.
"I'm 75 now, and I was going when I was 9 or 10," he says. "We used to get there by bus or train and go boating or play on the ocean wave swing, which is a bit like the octopus rides you have at some playgrounds."
An Auckland Council spokesperson says the former Waitakere City Council budget of $240,000 may not be enough to complete all the work and a future project will finish it. "The buildings have suffered from weather damage, and the objective of these repairs is to protect the cabins from further deterioration."
Depending on the tender process, work is likely to begin next month.
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