Category: A Family’s Experience in….

Personal experiences of other families in different places around New Zealand – what’s great and not so great about different cities, regions or experiences e.g. in camping grounds.

Ruatiti Domain, Freedom Camping

We’d only camped at holiday parks or on friends’ lawns before and with the promise of a river filled with trout just ready for catching, we decided to give this domain a try. What we liked: We could build a fire and toast marshmallows in a designated fire pit. The river, while very cold, was… Read more »

Holdsworth Lodge, Tararua Range, near Masterton

We wanted the chance to explore the Tararua Range when the weather was typically spring like and  unpredictable! It was too far to just go for the day and we love the peace and quiet of staying in a rural hut overnight. What we liked: the hut is at the road end so we could… Read more »

Tologa Bay Holiday Park, near Gisborne

I’d heard good things about this campground and with a few nights in the area with no plans, we decided to give it a try. As it was New Year’s Day, there was no issue with getting a camping spot. If we’d wanted to go over Christmas, I know we’d have needed to book months… Read more »

Papatahi Hut, Remutaka Forest Park

While our family do lots of bush walking this would be our first time staying in a hut. We chose this area as it was easily accessible to us (about an hour’s drive from Wellington), flat-ish walking and bookable huts that are sole occupancy. We went with another family and had a ball. The kids… Read more »

Paekakariki Holiday Ground

With fine weather forecast for an early Easter, and the camping gear having not seen the light of day all summer, we decided to check out the Paekakariki Holiday Ground for 2 nights over the long weekend. This is what we thought: What we liked: For us it was close to home – around 30… Read more »