Palmerston North Area Guide
The pleasant inland city of Palmerston North on the northern side of the Manawatu River is a two-hour drive north of Wellington. The flat terrain makes the city a pleasant place to walk or cycle around and the thousands of students who come here to study at Massey University means there is plenty of lively night time entertainment - one third of Palmerston North's population of 78,000 is aged between 15 and 30.
The city, known as Palmy to the locals, has the relaxed feel of a provincial university town, and is an easy place to shop and cafe crawl. The city's central focus is The Square, where the Visitor Centre is located beside the pristine art deco Ladies' Restroom. The varied architectural styles of the buildings around The Square are worth a look, particularly the City Library, a conversion designed by prominent New Zealand architect Ian Athfield, which retains the original 1927 facade of the former D.I.C. department store. The Square Edge arts centre on the corner of Church Street and The Square has a pretty art deco facade, and houses interesting galleries and gift shops.
Just off The Square on Main Street, the Te Manawa Museum is divided into three parts centred on the Life Galleries Museum, which has a small permanent exhibition of Maori artefacts and space for touring exhibitions, the Mind Gallery, which offers hands-on science displays for children, and the adjacent Art Gallery, which has a separate entrance, and which displays art from its permanent collection and from touring exhibitions. As befits a town in New Zealand's rural heartland, Palmerston North is home to the New Zealand Rugby Museum within walking distance of the town centre in Cuba Street.
Palmerston North has good outdoor spaces for walks and cycling which are detailed in the Palmerston North City Walkways brochure from the Visitor Centre. The pretty 19-hectare Victoria Esplanade park, with its rose gardens and native forest is a good place for quiet walks, cycle rides and picnics, and it has a good adventure playground and miniature railway for children, or for bird watching, try the Centennial Lagoon Walk which follows the entire length of the Hokowhitu Lagoon.