Swanson

Swanson is an outlying suburb of West Auckland, New Zealand and is located west of Henderson, surrounded by the Waitākere Ranges. Developing as a service centre for the kauri logging and gumdigging trades in the 1880s along the trainline, the town developed as a rural centre and an early tourist destination for Aucklanders, who visited the Redwood Park on the banks of the Swanson Stream. In the 1940s, the park became a training centre for soldiers in World War II, and in 1970 hosted Redwood 70, the first modern music festival in New Zealand.