Spending a few weeks in NZ “camping” certainly made me appreciate even more the freedom we have in our part of Canada to really camp. I’m sure there must be places like that in NZ, but we didn't really see them. NZ is a small country and there were many sheep farms and other forms of agriculture everywhere. Real wilderness seemed a bit elusive.
Some of the best wilderness is in National Parks like Fiordland, but there you’ll likely be on one of the famous “tracks” where you pay a pretty high fee to use it on a multi-day hike. In some cases you must stick to a set itinerary and might have to use the hut system if tenting isn’t allowed. The Milford Track, for example, may see in excess of 10,000 hikers on it each year. You won’t be alone.
What we saw a lot of people using for camping were vans, van campers, motor homes and the like and they all seem to be staying at the ubiquitous “holiday park” or “motor camp”. We rarely saw tents being used.
To me, this seems a lot like having most of the conveniences of home while traveling. What I mean is it isn't really camping. You get to tent or park on a gravel, asphalt or open grassy space, usually cheek by jowl with other campers. We were lucky: it wasn’t really high season when we were there and few campgrounds were really busy. In some “fields” where we camped, we were the only ones there. Some holiday parks had hedges separating the sites, but most were set up in open fields, usually very well mowed fields.
These holiday parks were everywhere. They had many sites with power outlets for the campers and “caravans” (trailers), but there was much more. They almost all had showers, kitchens, bathrooms, laundry facilities, and often quite a number of older trailers and small cabins (self-contained units). Some of these caravans are privately owned, the space being rented on a yearly basis. At one holiday park, I was told that renting a site for a year cost about NZ$2700. Some holiday parks even had dorms, sort of like hostels.
Speaking of which, there were hostels and “backpacker” accommodations all over the country as well, not something we needed to try out.
Rates for this kind of camping appeared to have increased significantly in the past few years. Few charged fees based on the site, but rather by the number of people. For example, a powered site might be $16/person, so for two people, $32. This was about the top end of what we paid, many were at least somewhat lower, but I understand there are other holiday parks that were more expensive than that.
I’d read about “freedom camping” before we’d left home. This might be called random camping in Canada but where we live, it’s kind of the norm, other than BC Provincial Parks, which usually just have gravel spaces in the trees. We seem to be doing more camping up some logging road pretty much where we want. There seemed to be less freedom in random camping in NZ these days, probably because of increased numbers of tourists, more areas where such camping is banned; the usual situation.
Some of our favourite camping was in DOC (Department of Conservation) sites. These were spotted all over NZ and were often in very nice locations: close to a beautiful beach, in old wooded areas, and so on. These “camping grounds” ranged from basic (pit toilets) to standard (water, flush toilets and some with campground hosts) and charged usually $6/person
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