With schools closed until the country moves from alert level four to level three, many kids around New Zealand have been missing their friends.
But one West-Auckland father has used his kiwi ingenuity to keep his 10-year old daughter connected to her two best friends, who happen to live right next door.
Summer, Frida and Lily are all 10 years old. Normally they'd be in each other's backyards playing whenever possible.
But the alert level 4 lockdown has cancelled playdates for kids across the country.
So West Auckland Father Loren MacIver and his partner Stephanie Livingstone found a way to get around that.
Taking some inspiration from a project they saw on Facebook, their mission was to build a seesaw through their fence.
Just two days into lockdown Loren cut a hole through his fence and there was no going back.
He put a plank right through it, and built a seesaw so that Summer and Lily, who live next door, could still play with each other from a distance.
The plank sits at about a metre off the ground and is almost four metres long - around two metres stick out on either side of the fence. That's more than the distance required for Covid-19 physical distancing safety measures.
It has two heart-shaped seats cut out by Loren for the girls to sit on, meaning they can still play together while staying in their bubbles.
Summer says her best friend Lily was over the moon.
"She thought it was pretty cool. She thought she was quite lucky to be on that side."
Loren's next mission is figuring out what he can build to connect Lily, who's on the other side to both Summer and Frida.
In the meantime the girls have figured out some great ways to keep their friendship alive.
They learn TikTok dances by the fence, use joey guns to shoot flower buds at a target in the driveway and Loren even put a campstyle fire in a large can in between the fences so the girls could toast marshmallows together at a safe distance while staying in their bubbles.
Stephanie says of all Loren's ideas during lockdown, the seesaw has been pretty special.
"I don't think we realised quite how special it was. We're pretty lucky."
And when the lockdown is over and New Zealand eventually moves to level two, the seesaw is going to stay.
