Last Friday, with no fanfare, no parade, no ribbon cutting, no band and no speeches, Whanganui's Kowhai Park re-opened.
Closed since the June extreme weather event sent the Whanganui River through the park, the famous children's playground has been lovingly restored and enhanced, and opened on Friday for play to resume.
Although
the weather planned to dampen children's enjoyment of the slides, swings and freshly cleaned features, plenty of families braved the wind so their younger members could get back to doing what they had been missing for six months.
Newly-sown grass struggled to contain the wind-blown soil and neither the water park nor Tot Town Railway were operating, but every slide, roundabout and swing was occupied when Midweek paid a visit.
"The ground is still patchy in parts and there are prickles in the grass so please wear shoes," says Whanganui District Council Senior Parks Officer Wendy Bainbridge. "Most of the play equipment needs painting, which will happen later in the year. It will be another 12 months before Kowhai Park is back to looking like it was before the floods, but we are getting there.
" Four new swings have been installed, including two basket swings for group play, a disability swing for use for people with limited movement and a rope swing. We will also be looking at creating a pathway from the carpark to the disability swing in the near future."
Mayor Annette Main acknowledged the patience of the public during the time it has taken to get the park ready for opening.
"Everyone who has worked hard to get the park to this stage, including the Department of Corrections team, Lions, Queen Alexandra's Mounted Rifles, Horizons Regional Council, BNZ, Rotary and of course our own Council parks team, deserves a huge thank you."
Mayor Main said there may be an event later in the year to celebrate the reopening of the park.
In the meantime the Department of Corrections team continued to work on the interior of the railway tracks and Lions member Tom Johnson was busy around the Tot Town Railway and the newly refurbished shop. They had managed to save most of the vulnerable equipment - and the two trains - before the flood.
