Camping ‘pit stops’ open for business
TWO new ‘‘pit stops’’ for freedom campers in Queenstown and Wanaka have experienced a quiet start to the summer season since opening on Saturday.
Funded by a $530,000 government grant, they are part of a responsible camping strategy adopted by the Queenstown Lakes District Council last month.
One of the service hubs is located near the Pak’n Save supermarket on Hawthorne Dr, Frankton, and the other on Wanaka’s Ballantyne Rd.
Open from 8am to 8pm for those travelling in certified selfcontained camper vans, they offer toilets, showers, rubbish disposal, dump stations and an hour’s free WiFi.
Project manager Craig Gallagher said nearly 50 vehicles had visited the hubs by midafternoon yesterday, and he expected that number to grow steadily over the next few weeks.
Each was staffed by four ‘‘ambassadors’’, who were also tasked with driving around the district to monitor and educate freedom campers wherever they were likely to encounter them.
That included two councilmanaged camping sites in Kingston and Luggate that had been upgraded using the Government funding.
They would also visit Doc camping sites and popular photo locations and laybys known to be a ‘‘little problematic’’ for illegal camping.
Their role was confined to educating visitors where they could legally camp, not to be the ‘‘bad cop’’, as the council already had an enforcement team for that purpose.
Two more ambassadors would be recruited for each hub in time for the peak visitor season from December to February.
Mr Gallagher said a crucial part of the new approach was a popular app for camper van users called CamperMate.
Sensors had been installed at the Luggate and Kingston camping sites so that CamperMate knew how many vehicles were at each. As soon as a site was full, the app stopped promoting it.
The app had received some Government funding, and would generate valuable data that would allow the strategy to be ‘‘tweaked’’ as more was learned about what freedom campers wanted and how they moved around the district.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult said the hubs were a ‘‘step in the right direction’’ for managing freedom camping in the district, and he was pleased to see them up and running.