free, perfect location.

campers ignoring the fire ban and some locals driving cars super fast made me a bit uncomfortable. beautiful waikato river. toilets so disgusting we drove back to public toilets in town each time we needed to go, but i see this should be fixed soon, in early june it still wasnt.

Reviewed over 10 years ago

at $18pp for a van site, typical price for a holiday park, perhaps even cheap for the area, but we always feel its slightly overpriced, esp since showers are not included, they are 50cents for a short

5min. still, nice location on the beach, impeccably clean facilities, 50mb free wifi, outdated but cozy tv room. we had the place to ourselves in june, not sure if we got winter rates.

Reviewed over 10 years ago

$20 each for a damn parking spot.

showers were an extra $2. a total construction site. very sterile. facilities were clean and its a good location, but wouldnt do it again.

Reviewed over 10 years ago

perfect spot.

friendly caretaker, warm farmhouse kitchen and lounge, hot shower included, cats and wekas. we stayed here after doing part of the heaphy track. karamea has nice sunsets.

Reviewed over 10 years ago

we stayed here to find work and because it seemed to be the only backpackers in town with van sites.

pros:

-incredibly easy to find work

-staff is nice

-very clean, cleaned every day, awesome hot showers

-most multicultural hostel we found in nz, eg not full of germans but truly people from all over the world

-at $80 per week, cheap

-centrally located

-owner seems to be making improvements, even building a small movie room

cons:

-the goddamn train

-worst kitchen ever. shitty camping cookers that are so high up you cant see what you are cooking unless you are at least 6 feet tall. this is not an exaggeration, i am 5,6 and i could not see my food. tiny kitchen always packed until 9pm, but it closes at 10. because of this sometimes we actually cooked in our car to avoid this, which made us wonder why we paid for a site in the first place. staff told us there was a bigger kitchen but it was closed since the hostel was not full - but when we asked for our secondweek discount, we were told the discount was not available because the hostel *was* full. hmm.

- nice bbq area for summer, but the only common area otherwise is a table in a tent. when the kitchen closes, there is literally no place to be inside. the rooms are pretty nice, with tvs and fridges, but everyone living in their van was fed up. literally the only place to go to get warm was the shower, and you cannot always be in the shower! we ended up leaving blenheim largely for this reason, although we certainly didnt regret coming here.

Reviewed over 10 years ago

very pretty.

easy to find a secluded spot even if its crowded. good flush toilets and changing room, but they were so far from our site that we used our bicycles! cute wekas and stunning night sky. we chose this spot because i had read the luminaries, which takes place in the area, and we wanted to go to the gorge. the drive to the campsite and the loop to the gorge are very pretty but it was a rather long drive, not totally sure if it was worth it, but still, nice.

Reviewed over 10 years ago and experienced in April 2014

pretty nice for a doc site.

flush toilets and a kitchen with running water, though you bring your own stove. i wouldnt come again, but only because we found the catlins quite underwhelming.

Reviewed over 10 years ago and experienced in April 2014

this is one of dunedins 3 designated free spots and apparently there have been many complaints about campers abuse of the spot.

its an absolutely gorgeous area, though rather far from the city itself. we arrived at 4pm and there were already 7 vehicles. only 5 are allowed, so the 2 latecomers actually asked the first cars to park closer together so they could fit in the designated spots. as the 8th, we did not fit and disapproved of such behavior anyway. there are large no camping signs on all the other spots. a security patrol came and wrote down our license plate and said they werent kicking us out, but that someone could come later to do so. we felt uncomfortable and left. we ended up just parking free overnight on the street in st clair and had no problems.

Reviewed over 10 years ago and experienced in April 2014

only a longdrop, but its ok, you can drive easily enough to decent public toilets in twizel in the morning.

convenient to highway. quite large area but was still crowded, in january.

Reviewed over 10 years ago and experienced in January 2014