Auckland Botanic Gardens, Maunukau

The Auckland Botanic Gardens in Manukau is a lovely place to spend an afternoon with a dog or otherwise. If you do decide to take your pooch, enter the park from the back, at the Everglade Drive entrance. The northwestern area of the park is an off-leash area, which includes a big green swimmin' hole. Needless to say, this was the main focus of mine and Nikki's visit. It turns out, after checking the map on the Gardens website, that there was actually a lot more off leash area than we'd realised.

It may have just been the weather or the time of day, but we didn't see that many other people with dogs there, and most of those few kept their dogs on lead. If you hadn't checked the website map first, it's not entirely obvious where the off leash part begins and ends - I only unleashed Nikki when I saw that others were doing the same. Admittedly I did see one sign when I was approaching the edge of the offleash zone (I found it while walking out to the only bin for miles).

From the map and the satellite images on Google maps, it appears that we missed what looks like an empty field and an enormous sandpit? I'm not really one for plain wide open spaces to run my dog in, I find them boring, but this may work well for people who like to throw frisbees for their dogs or for dogs who actually play fetch on dry land (mine doesn't).

We were in a bit of a hurry, but this area may prove to be one of those nice combination walk settings, you can walk on lead with your dog admiring the... botanics, and then you can let them go nuts off leash at the end for a bit. Or you can tucker them out first off leash and watch them tiredly behave impeccably on lead  afterward.

I don't like to stereotype, but I would suggest the dogs of Manukau are a little more rough and ready than those of say, Mt Eden, or the shore.  I think Manukau is home to a lot more "SPCA specials", and on the whole I would suggest that these people are more relaxed about scuffles and suchlike as their dogs have varied backgrounds. If you are one of those people who really panics in a heated argument between dogs, I would suggest that you are more likely to have such an encounter here. But if, like me, you find that people are quick to judge your mixed breed dog, then you might feel quite at home.

I vainly spent most of my time videoing Nikki's awesome Tux Wonderdogs-stlye leaps into the pond after her ball. It always gets me humming "Fit as a fiddle, sharp as knife" for the rest of the day. Then I took some attractive photos of her posing on some steps. These follow.