Parks Week 2022
This Parks Week (5–13 March 2022) we're celebrating all things parks!
The Kāpiti Coast is famous for our beautiful parks, and the walking trails, cycleways and bridleways that showcase our beaches and dunes, leafy river tracks and coastal forests. Spending time in our parks and the outdoors is important for our wellbeing, helping us feel more positive. So get outside this week, and discover how our parks and natural environment can support your wellbeing!
What makes parks great?
Play
There are so many opportunities for play in our parks! It's important we play all our lives; to find out why play is so important, check out Find your play!
Active
From running, biking, horse riding or playing sport, there are so many ways to be active in our parks and wider outdoors.
Restoration
Amazing people across Kāpiti regularly give their time to enhance, protect and restore our natural environment.
Volunteers have many reasons why they do what they do, from planting trees, building tracks, weeding, monitoring all for the sake of future generations and protecting the whenua. Whatever their reason, we couldn’t do it without them!
To find out more, or to join a group see our Get involved page, and watch our restoration video below.
Kaitiakitanga
Kaitiakitanga is a lifelong calling, and often the fruits are not seen in our lifetime. For hapū and iwi of Kāpiti, kaitiakitanga is a role that comes through whakapapa (genealogical connection) with successive responsibilities and obligations to te taiao, ki uta ki tai – the environment from the mountains to the sea.
Our parks spaces hold cultural and historical significance to local hapū and iwi; learning our local stories reminds us these are not just parks for recreation, but were thriving community hubs, green pharmacies and food forests. They were very much contributors to whānau wellbeing.
Find out more with our kaitiakitanga video.
Social
Parks offer a place to come together to play, share kai, be active or just sit and talk with friends. Sometimes it’s a case of sharing a smile or a wave that lifts the soul as people go past.
Join members of our regional Rongoā Collective, Hemaima Carkeek and Sharlene Moate-Davis as they talk kaitaikitanga and all things rongoā.
A short video celebrating the people who contribute to restoring, protecting and enhancing our natural environment. View our Local restoration groups page to learn how you can also help with this important work.