Pinewoods Park

Pinewoods Park has one big pine tree to justify its name.
The tree’s strung with Christmas lights well into February
because it’s always festive at Pinewoods.
The Park used to be fairly relaxed
but now there’s an electronic gate and barbwire fences.
With a name like Pinewoods Park you might think of rest homes, mushy carrots and incontinence.
Really, it’s a pristine place,
popular with families fronted by proud dads who thrust their arms out the windows of their 4WDs to swipe their gate opening cards.
From the top of Jacob’s Ladder you can watch the waves incessantly rolling into Orewa beach,
much like the unstoppable mobs that would surely flood the Park if it weren’t for those big gates.
Mounted on the roof of a bach near Jacob’s Ladder is a wooden bird with a grimacing face.
The wind blows the bird’s legs round in a circle so when it’s gusty he looks like Wile E. Coyote madly chasing Roadrunner.
Or, like he wants to run right off the cliff into those rowdy waves.
Who can blame him?