Dinosaur Park

A well known park in Dunedin (and one of Bodie's favorites) is Dinosaur Park.  The real name is Marlow park and it is located at the beach, behind the sand dunes in St Kilda.  Unfortuntely I cannot find any historical details about this park.  But based on the fact that most of the playground equipment looks similar to that of Kowhai Park in Wanganui, I assume it is of the same era as Kowhai Park (1960s).

The playground is huge.  Not only does it have a lot of grass, it has a lot of fun equipment for kids to play on with fun shapes.  It also has your standard climbing equipment and slides.  Bodie's favorite is the big dinosaur slide.  Bodie thinks it is funny to walk up a dinosaurs back, slide down it's throat and fall out it's mouth. 

Not only does the Dinosaur park have playground equipment but it also has a very cool bike riding space.  There are little jumps and ramps and the most awesome is a road for the bikes!  It is a bit of pavement, that is marked out like a road, has give way (yield) signs, intersections, round abouts, pedestrian crossings everything!  But the cars are the bikes!   Bodie has a ball on this and can ride his bike for hours on it!

 

While you may be thinking surely there can't be anything else at this park, think again!  There is also putt-putt/mini golf and a steam engine train that kids can ride in.  These activities cost money (not sure how much b/c we have not done it, yet).  Oh and the BEST thing is there is a cafe/coffee cart on weekends!!

Scroll up and look at the picture of the dinosaur slide.  In the background you see cars parked on the hill.  Down the hill behind the cars is the beach.  So, you can go down the beach as well.

One thing is that the wind can RIP though this playground and it is freakin' cold wind!  So, make sure you take coats and stuff just in case (not so bad for the kids but for us adults, wow, it can be COLD!)

So, definately an awesome place to kill a lot of time and run an active child!

http://goo.gl/maps/8vzac