The Sculpture Park at Waitakaruru Arboretum

Hamilton, New Zealand, New Zealand

---

The Sculpture Park at Waitakaruru Arboretum is a unique art-in-nature experience located at 207 Scotsman Valley Road near Tauwhare in the Waikato region, about 30 minutes from Hamilton, New Zealand. Carved out of a 42-acre (17.5-hectare) former greywacke hard-rock quarry set in a Waikato hillside, the site has been transformed over 32 to 35 years since planting began in 1991 into a magnificent arboretum and garden with dramatic rocky outcrops, ponds, flowing water, and broad vistas toward Mount Pirongia. The park features more than 100 sculptures and installations from a wide variety of genres displayed along a 2-kilometer art-in-nature trail that winds between ponds and a stream, making it the most extensive outdoor sculpture gallery in New Zealand and one of the country's largest outdoor galleries, with all sculptures created by New Zealand artists, sometimes including visiting international artists. The arboretum houses collections of more than 25,000 to 30,000 trees and shrubs representing worldwide biodiversity from around the world, organized into sections including a fernery and native New Zealand bush gullies, American, Latin American, Asian, and Australian sections, and a rock garden of succulents and cacti. The park features three new curated exhibitions per year, with each sculpture telling an individual and thought-provoking story, and the Art-in-Nature experience aims to inspire imaginations, spark environmentally sustainable creativity, and nourish inquisitive minds in an accessible wilderness environment.