Barry Curtis Park, Stancombe Road, Flat Bush, 2016
Type of Course – Two laps
Shoes Required – Road
Things to know
Toilets, a children’s playground and water (drinking) fountains are available. There is ample free parking in the car park accessed opposite Erica Rd.
Parking is free and there is space for motorhome parking.
Permanently marked.
No showers nearby.
Barry Curtis Park is the largest urban park to be developed in Auckland in the last 100 years.
Cafe: Sequel Café, 16J Bishop Dunn Place.
Location of start:
The run starts opposite the Wetland playground off Stancombe Rd.
Getting there by public transport
A number of bus stops traveling in all directions can be found on Stancombe Rd and Chapel Rd. Use the Auckland Transport Journey Planner to plan your journey.
Getting there on foot
Barry Curtis Park is a large park in the middle of the Flat Bush suburb. It is easily accessible by foot from a number of points.
Getting there by road
From the north: Follow State Highway 1 south to exit 444, East Tamaki Rd/Urban Route 8. Turn left. Turn right onto Preston Rd then left onto Ormiston Rd. Turn left onto Chapel Rd then right onto Stancombe Rd.
From the south: Follow State Highway 1 north to exit 449A-B towards Manukau. Turn right at the Great South Rd lights and then keep in the right lane at the next lights to run right onto Redoubt Rd. Turn left onto Hollyford Drive, right onto Aspiring Ave, continue straight onto Matthews Ave, which leads to Chapel RD, then right onto Stancombe Rd.
Stats
First run: May 25, 2013
Inaugural attendance: 36
Record attendance: 261 (01/02/2020)
Course records
Women: Lisa Cross 18:00 (13/04/2019)
Men: Peter Wheeler 15:15 (30/06/2018)
The story behind Barry Curtis parkrun…
Tom Mann, original event director
I was doing a bit of work with the Auckland Council at the time and was in the event space getting people active. We’d been throwing the idea around about starting a run group.
When you type in the words park and run to Google, parkrun comes up.
Chris Earl, who was with the parks department, went and did a few runs at Cornwall parkrun and got a feel for what parkrun is.
We talked with Noel and Lian and the messaging around it being a volunteer organisation for the community.
We thought it was something we needed to think about as we were paid employees. We thought we’d have to do it with a different hat but we wanted to keep the council in the picture.
My girlfriend at the time, Esther [editor’s note, Esther and Tom have since married], myself and Chris, after working with Noel and Lian, decided that Barry Curtis Park would be a good fit for parkrun – we’d first looked at Totara Park.
We were a bit sceptical at first because it was a new park with not many established trees.
I didn’t think a two lap course would be very fun but it is really a cool thing. It was relatively easy to map it out because there are a lot of paths that cut through the park.
It took around two to three months of working with Noel and Lian, who were amazing.
It’s been fascinating watching the growth on a national and international scale.
We had low numbers for a number of years and then it started to grow. It’s totally gone beyond what we imagined.
It’s everything what a council wants – a volunteer driven programme to deliver a positive social and physical project for the community.
Councils should be throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at parkruns across the country because of the positives it’s doing for communities.
The best thing about Barry Curtis is watching the people who run PBs, not the sub 20s but the plus 35s, those who have turned up and they keep coming back as it’s made such a change in their lives.
It’s a pretty special feeling seeing these people doing things and make these positive changes.
There’s also the sense of community, as a result of parkrun there’s now a Sunday cycling group, they run on Saturday then bike together Sunday.
One thing I love about Barry Curtis is we’re never the biggest, being small we’ve kept that strong community feel to it.
The park is named after a former mayor of the then Manukau City Council, and we run along the John Walker Promenade, which is cool that we’re keeping his legacy going.
While in South Auckland…
Auckland Botanic Gardens
Howick Historical Village
Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple
Rainbow’s End
Clevedon Farmer’s Market on Sundays