Laurie Hall Park water feature working again

Frogs removed from broken waterfall in Laurie Hall Park. Photo Michael Cunningham

The waterfall in Laurie Hall Park in central Whangarei is back to being a working water feature and the pool it cascades into is no longer a bed of festering pond scum.

With a new pump installed and the leaks in the tired old pond plugged, the grassy area below the site will again be more suitable for picnics and play than wading and mud wrestling.

That description sounds overly harsh but in recent years the croaking of frogs, not the light fall of water, was the sound most associated with it.

The pump that drove the waterfall had broken long before, along with the failure of other vital plumbing.

Various repairs and pump trials took place, but the water feature was an eyesore for four years and the surrounding ground a swamp.

Last week, Whangarei District Council staff put an end to that sorry state, with the finish of a big repair job that started in December.

Back then, before the council could begin the work, staff had to remove several frogs and a school of tadpoles that had set up home in the pond's deeply dodgy looking sludge, weed and non-degradable items of rubbish.

The robust population of Australian bell frogs were thought to be the spawn of escapees from nearby backyard water features.

WDC recreational services contractor Nick Connop led the rescue mission by relocating the creatures to the Botanica Fernery.

Last week he was one of many people celebrating the waterfall's return to glory.