Alex Villa
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North Island ▷ Bay of Plenty ▷ Whakatane ▷
Pikowai Reserve Camping Ground
4.5/5
Sat-Sun night, Jan 2019 2 adults with a rental car & tent.
This place saved us from a sleepless night, as this was the only non-gated place which we found at 01 AM around Tauranga. Its operated by the district council and is non-staffed/self-service. You get a receipt of a sorts when you pay (16$ minimum charge, allows 2 adults+car+tent), and it might be checked in the morning, but wasn't when we stayed.
IMO, very decent facilities for the price: garbage bin, two clean toilets with water, one hot shower, tiny cracked mirror and multiple water points but NO drinking water.
Lots of folk: on arrival, out of 33 spaces maybe 4 were vacant.
Noisy site: it is between a 80 km/h road & railroad and the sea. Not much traffic but enough & waves crashing so that earplugs were necessary.
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North Island ▷ Auckland Region ▷ Auckland ▷
Omega Rental Cars
5.0/5
Definitely recommend Omega.
We rented a car twice for two weeks each time. Great value as Omega website had almost 50% cheaper prices than any car rental comparison service, and the cars were totally decent. Nothing fancy, but they used little gas, worked without problems and served us well. We got especially good service in South Island, specifically Picton and Christchurch (city and airport offices). Friendly, unhurried staff. In Christchurch city, the mechanic took some time to address our concern about a loud noise in the front axles/tires which turned out to be a rock in the brake pad. At the airport, we got a free shuttle to the terminal after returning our car. I was happy to pay these people.