Auckland Domain

Auckland Domain
A bird of prey-sculpture in the Auckland Domain, with the Auckland Museum behind
Type	Public park
Location	Auckland, New Zealand
Area	185 acres (0.75 km²)
Created	1840s (1840s)
Operated by	Auckland Council
Status	Open year round

The Auckland Domain is Auckland's oldest park, and at 75 hectares one of the largest in the city. Located in the central suburb of Grafton, the park contains all of the explosion crater and most of the surrounding tuff ring of the Pukekawa volcano.

The park is home to one of Auckland's main tourist attractions, the Auckland War Memorial Museum, which sits prominently on the crater rim (tuff ring). Several sports fields occupy the floor of the crater, circling to the south of the cone, while the rim opposite the Museum hosts the cricket pavilion and Auckland City Hospital. The Wintergarden, with two beautiful glass houses, lie on the north side of the central scoria cone. The fernery has been constructed in an old quarry in part of the cone. The duck ponds lie in the northern sector of the explosion crater, which is breached to the north with a small overflow stream.

The Auckland Domain volcano, Pukekawa, is one of the oldest in the Auckland Volcanic Field, and consists of a large explosion crater surrounded by a tuff ring with a small scoria cone (Pukekaroro) in the centre of the crater. Its tuff ring, created by many explosive eruptions, is made of a mixture of volcanic ash, lapilli and fragmented sandstone country rock. Its eruption followed soon (in geological terms) after the neighbouring Grafton Volcano was created, destroying that volcano's eastern parts and burying the rest.

Originally, the crater floor was filled with a lava lake, the western half collapsed slightly and became a freshwater lake which later turned into a swamp and slowly filled up with alluvium and sediment, before being drained by Europeans for use as playing fields and parkland. These origins are still somewhat visible in that the Duck Ponds are freshwater-fed from the drainage of the crater.

Pukekawa was identified by the Māori early on as one of the best sites in the isthmus area, with the north-facing side of the volcanic cone well-suited for growing kūmara, while the hill itself was used for storage and as a pā site. The crater swamp meanwhile provided eels and water.