Centennial Park Walkway Loop
Rotorua · Bay of Plenty · Loop
This walk was suggested by the community and checked against the authority quoted above before it was published. The route line comes from official track data. Rotorua Lakes Council’s own wording: “Rotorua Lakes Council, Centennial Park page: "Dogs are allowed but must be on a lead due to stock grazing." The council’s dog rules add the district-wide default that "all dogs in public places must be on a lead that is two metres long or less" unless the area is a listed Dog Exercise Area, and Centennial Park is not one of them. The council also records that the reserve "is not legally classified as a cemetery", so the district’s cemetery restriction does not apply here”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Keep them on the lead, watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Centennial Park Walkway Loop
Centennial Park Walkway Loop covers 0.5 km, near Rotorua in Bay of Plenty, walked as a loop.
A short, pretty lap of the formal walkways at Centennial Park on the Tihiotonga side of Rotorua, sent in by Inge, who rated it for the cherry blossom. The park is an arboretum of memorial trees, planted over decades in remembrance of local people, so it walks like a big open garden: mown grass, specimen trees, seats and plaques, and a lot of colour when the blossom is out in spring. The marked walkway makes a circuit of about 470 m and returns you to where you started, which makes it an easy stroll rather than an outing, and the wider park has plenty more informal walking if you want to stretch it out. Dogs are welcome and the lead is not optional. Rotorua Lakes Council puts it plainly on the park’s own page: dogs are allowed but must be on a lead due to stock grazing. There really are sheep loose in the paddock areas here, keeping the grass down between the trees, so this is a place where a lead earns its keep even for a dog that is usually reliable. Rotorua’s district-wide rule points the same way, a lead of two metres or less anywhere public unless you are in one of the listed dog exercise areas, and this park is not one of them. One piece of local confusion worth clearing up, because it changes the answer. The park is mapped in places as a cemetery, and Rotorua prohibits exercising dogs in any cemetery in the district. The council’s own words are that the reserve is not legally classified as a cemetery and no remains are buried there, only memorial trees, so the cemetery rule does not apply and dogs are genuinely allowed. Walk quietly and keep off the plantings all the same, people visit particular trees here. The main gates open at 8am and close at 8pm through daylight saving and 4.30pm in winter, so check the time before you drive in behind a closing gate. There are toilets, picnic tables and a barbecue on site. If your dog is desperate for a run off the lead, Jackson Park next door is on the council’s off-lead list, with access off Springfield Road, McDowell Street and Otonga Road.
It sits at the easy end and gains roughly 6 m, and takes about 6 min to walk.
Dogs are allowed here, on the lead. This walk is on the map because Inge & Pip suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.
