Maycamper
South Island ▷ Coastal Otago ▷ Oamaru ▷
5.0/5
Had an unpowered campsite for a night and loved this place.
Quiet, off the road with open grassy areas for tents.
Facilities were clean and well above expectation for price point -- kitchen with fridge, kettle and stove; $2 washing machine and showers. (Two things you might want to note is showers are on a 5min timer, but they're hot with lovely water pressure. Second, the hot water in the kitchen has a 5-step, ten minute warmup process. We just boiled the kettle). Opportunity for a campfire as well.
At $12.50pp we though this was a steal and would have loved to stayed longer if we weren't flying out.
South Island ▷ Queenstown Region ▷ Queenstown Township ▷
4.0/5
Spent one night in a tent.
It's a lovely site, with access to the lake and a few walks. Its claim to fame is as a Lord of the Rings filming location. It's quite a large site with numerous toilets. Also had (non-drinking) water and wash up basins. As a side note my hayfever was terrible at this location, beware!
South Island ▷ Southland ▷ Owaka ▷
4.0/5
Standard free campsite -- Long drop toilet, (non-drinkable) tap and sink.
The night we stayed was pretty windy but the camp site is a bit sheltered. The area was fairly full by night time, when we arrived lat afternoon it was maybe three quarters full. It's 2km up a dirt road but the rest is sealed (think the road is newly surfaced as most of our maps had it marked as dirt).
South Island ▷ Southland ▷ Tuatapere ▷
3.5/5
Stayed here one night in a tent.
It's a basic free campsite. There's a picnic table and shelter -- we greatly appreciated the shelter for cooking as it was blowing a gale and raining on and off. There is a tap, however the (rain?) water was the colour of tea so we didn't use it!
It's a picturesque spot and as we arrived at low tide we enjoyed exploring Monkey Island. Obviously we were not the only ones enjoying it as the campsite was pretty full up by nightfall.