Sports fields, Millwater Parkway, Silverdale, Auckland 0932
Type of Course – Out and back
Shoes Required – Road
Things to know
Public toilets and parking in the Millwater Parkway Metro Park. Toilets are also approximately 1km along the course at the hockey fields.
Parking is free and there is space for motorhome parking.
Forgot your barcode? Email the RD to print for you
Nearest showers at Northern Arena
Very low risk of cancellation – never cancelled
Permanently marked
Cafe: Millie’s Café, The Coffee Mill and Brotzeit German Bakery on Millwater Parkway all offer discounts on production of a parkrun barcode.
Location of start:
The start is a short walk from the Millwater Parkway Metro Park parking adjacent to the bench located near to the public toilets.
Getting there by public transport
From the Hibiscus Coast Station and Park & Ride, take Bus 985. Stop at Bankside Road by Miller Rise (Stop ID: 4569).
Getting there on foot
From the bus stop on Bankside Road (Stop ID: 4569), head east on Bankside Road toward Founding Lane. Turn left onto Millwater Parkway.
Getting there by road
From the north: Take State Highway 1 exit 394 for Orewa. At the roundabout take the first exit for Grand Dr (Orewa). Turn right onto Arran Dr, go straight through one roundabout and then turn left at the next roundabout onto Millwater Parkway. Follow the road until you reach the sports fields on your right.
From the south: Take State Highway 1 exit 398 for Silverdale. At the roundabout take the third exit onto Hibiscus Coast Highway.
Turn left onto Silverdale St, and go over the first roundabout, continuing onto Silverdale St.
At the next roundabout take the first exit onto Millwater Parkway and follow the road until you see the sports fields on your right.
Parking is located on the right at Millwater Parkway Metro Park.
Stats
First run: September 20, 2014
Inaugural attendance: 56
Record attendance: 257 (25/01/2020)
Course records
Women: Katrina Andrew 16:32 (14/05/2022)
Men: Fabian Downs 15:38 (8/05/2021)
The Story Behind Millwater parkrun…
Rhys Spyve, event director
There were two couples who started it off – the Myburghs and the Falconers. At the time Gavin Myburgh was involved with New Zealand Home Loans, the national sponsor of the time.
It was a very small parkrun to begin with. They’d get 20 and then 30 runners and then up to 60, all depending on the weather.
Then it grew steadily.
I took over as event director in 2018 as Gavin and Antoinette were moving up north. I’d been run director and doing other volunteering.
I first heard of parkrun when I went to Australia in 2014 for a holiday to see my daughter. She asked me if I wanted to go and do a parkrun.
I asked her what it was and then said I wasn’t sure if I could finish 5km. I thought it would take an hour.
Low and behold I went for a steady run and did it in 25:25. I was really happy with that. That was at Sandon Point. on the east coast of Sydney.
When I came home I looked up parkrun New Zealand to see what events there were and low and behold there was one in Millwater, only 20 minutes from where I was living at the time. I’ve since moved closer.
You see so many people turn up and they’re all happy, motivated, the typical parkrun family stuff. There are so many people with a positive attitude.
You get to know a really good proportion of them. I don’t know all 250 of them but we’ve a good core group of people involved.
It starts the weekend off in a fantastic fashion.
We get a few visitors, we’ve always got overseas runners and tourists from other parts of New Zealand.
We’ve got a thing called Millwater Magic, we’ve had so much luck when it comes to the weather. It can be raining cats and dogs on Friday and the forecast is rain for Saturday but there’s no rain while we run and when we’re done it starts to rain again.
It’s become quite a thing that we get that good break in the weather.
I enjoy the run when I’m running, but it’s the people who make it.
While in north Auckland…
Snowplanet
Silverdale Pioneer Village
Orewa Beach
Woodhill Mountain Bike Park
Wenderholm Regional Park walks