Keeping traditional camping alive
Nostalgia is king at Tirohanga Beach Motor Camp, where Sue Hoffart finds a quiet spot on the eastern Bay of Plenty.
Every summer, avenues of tents and campervans develop alongside streets of motorhomes and caravans to form a temporary village near O¯ po¯ tiki. Campers like Rotorua-based Emma Runciman come here with children and chillybins, inflatable beds and boats and fold-out picnic tables, to holiday in much their same way as previous generations.
Although it is the first time Runciman and husband Karl have slept in a tent with 11-monthold son Jax, some of her favourite childhood memories encompass camping with her parents and big sisters. She is determined young Jax will have the same opportunity to bathe in a plastic tub and fall into a sandy sleeping bag.
It was Runciman who gathered five other families to Tirohanga; 12 adults, two dogs and 11 children aged 10 and under to share communal barbecue meals and chips with dip. Both her sisters drove from Hawke’s Bay and National Park respectively, to re-enact their own version of the good old days.
The Eastern Bay of Plenty campground ticks all the boxes for the kind of time-travel they seek. It’s safe, spotless, dog and child-friendly and fully fenced, with SH35 running along one side of the 5.7hectare beachfront property and the other opening onto a handsome ribbon of cycle trail, then the ocean.
Cellphone reception is patchy but the 30-yearold Para pool is still going strong, while the properly adventurous playground features heartstoppingly high climbing frames and a disused jetboat parked on the grass. There’s outdoor chess and a communal volleyball net, as well as a games hall kitted out with table hockey, table tennis and a well-worn pool table alongside the television and ancient brown sofa.
‘‘They haven’t gone and zhooshed it up to make it all fancy-pants so they can charge you an arm and a leg,’’ Runciman says. ‘‘It’s Kiwi-fied. It’s all so nice and clean, but it’s still old school, it feels like the experience you had when you were seven years old.’’
The campground bills itself as both friendly and affordable; two adults pay $40 for a powered site offseason and $130 for a self-contained cabin in the thick of the Christmas rush.
Manager Julie Munro took the helm just weeks before the busiest period of the year, with pregnant daughter Emma Munro and two grand-daughters alongside. By January 27, they had about 800 neighbours to look after – almost a 10th the population of O¯ po¯ tiki – on more than 340 sites, with a few extras poked into simple cabins and bunkrooms.
However, Julie had an inkling of what lay ahead, having lived just over the fence for about 10 years, in one of 25 relocatable homes on leasehold campground land. The former Rotorua resident has spent the intervening years managing another campground and working as supervisor of a local cleaning company. Her youngest daughter also had some useful experience; Emma was working as a part-time cleaner at the motor camp and renting a nearby farm cottage when her uncle bought the property.
For 44 years, the campground was owned by two successive generations of the McLellan family. In November last year it was purchased by Julie’s older brother, Ross Munro, whose Sport Folio company supplies clothing and merchandise for the likes of Rugby World Cup and America’s Cup events. But the Tirohanga purchase was no business deal; it was a way to provide employment for his sister and a house for his niece. His own son Simon is also involved, helping with operations from his base in Auckland.
The big brother has no plans to develop or sell his chunk of beachside real estate, either.
‘‘Not in my lifetime,’’ Ross says. ‘‘If I could break even out of this, I’d be pretty happy.’’
Besides, he likes the motor camp just the way it is.
‘‘I went down there when it was packed and it gave me a really warm, fuzzy feeling, It’s really nice, very family focussed.’’
Thanks to her uncle’s focus on family, Emma now lives in the on-site manager’s house with daughters Trinity, 14, and Shanelle, 7 and their rowdy pet lorikeets. Julie and her Shih TzuMaltese dog Pip technically live next door. However, during busy periods, the campground boss regularly clocks up a 16-hour work day at the campground before shuffling – she’s awaiting foot surgery – home.
That’s why it takes five attempts to get her homemade tomato sauce on to the stove. Each time she starts to slice or measure ingredients, the phone rings or a camper turns up at the office window or she spots a more urgent task within her domain.
Finally, when the sauce is bubbling, Tirohanga Beach Motor Camp demands a little more attention and the mixture is suddenly burnt beyond salvation.
The good-natured 57-year-old rolls her eyes and laughs. Oh well. She’ll throw it out, scrub the pot later and start again another day, with a new batch of tomatoes.
‘‘I don’t think you could ever sit back and say, there’s nothing to do today,’’ Julie says. ‘‘We’re responsible, really, for making sure people have their great holiday.’’
Both mother and daughter are constantly moving, chatting with campers, checking the recycling station and that no-one’s music is too loud, keeping an eye on children in the pool, answering the phone, cleaning or on the office computer. Julie is looking forward to refinishing a pile of picnic tables during the much quieter offseason, and splashing some of her favourite lime green paint around to bright the place up a bit.
‘‘It doesn’t feel like work though, I absolutely love it. It’s an incredible feeling to know you’re the controller of a place that so many people hold so precious.’’
Some campers have been making the pilgrimage for decades, often to the same favourite site.
Upper Hutt retirees Ian and Olive Pearless have stayed every summer for 36 years. When their three sons were young, the Pearlesses would haul a trailer full of gear north on Christmas Day, to meet her brother and family at the campground. Now they come a little later in the season, once the peak rush has passed, and sleep in a cabin because their heavy old canvas tent is too heavy to pitch.
‘‘I do miss the tent,’’ Olive says. ‘‘That rain on the roof of the tent and you don’t hear the sea as much.’’
They reminisce about flooded campsites during summer storms and New Year’s Eve parties when the resident manager would haul logs across the entrance to keep unwelcome guests out. Or those occasions when Lucy the pig would escape from a nearby paddock and run riot through the camp.
who pay a fee to keep their mobile homes on site year-round. When the place is busy, the Hendersons pitch in and help the campground owners where they can, perhaps mowing some lawns, refilling the toilet rolls, having a quiet word when something is amiss.
Their caravan sleeps four – sometimes Trudy’s two adult children stay, too – and is attached to a hardboard and aluminium joinery annexe that houses the king-sized bed. It’s the girls’ job to sweep the floor and wash breakfast dishes each morning, then they’re free to swim, play volleyball or card games, hit the playground or roam with other campground kids. At night, there are marshmallows to roast over a fire on the beach. Over Christmas, Dean brings the quad bike and heads down the beach with a longline, often with the waves of friends who arrive from Auckland, Wellington, Kerikeri.
‘‘We wouldn’t come anywhere else,’’ Trudy says. ‘‘It’s relaxing, it’s peaceful. The campsites are a decent size so even when it’s really busy you don’t feel like you’re living on top of each other.’’
She is charmed by the area, too, and relays the story of watching a local school bus pull up outside the next door beach store so its occupants could pile into the shop to buy ice creams, as a Friday treat.
‘‘Where else would you see that,’’ she asks, laughing.
While the campground has always been wellmaintained, she approves of the way Julie and Emma have made small, sensible changes like placing toilet block soap dispensers within a child’s reach. Or reinstating the annual camp sausage sizzle tradition.
‘‘They’re awesome, I think they’re going to go really, really well here. When they arrived, they had 98 per cent capacity and it was sink or swim. They swam.’’
DON’T MISS
Bike the Motu Trails dunes track and read the interpretive signs for a local history lesson.
Serious mountain bikers can explore tougher tracks in what’s deemed a ‘‘great ride’’ of Nga Haerenga, The New Zealand Cycle Trail.
Buy an ice cream from Tirohanga Beach Store. The servings are enormous.
Take a break from O¯ po¯ tiki op-shopping to grab a coffee from the Kafe Friends (30 King St) cart. Or lunch at Two Fish Cafe´ (102 Church St).
Visit Taketakerau, the ancient puriri tree whose hollow base was traditionally used for burials. The tree stands in Hukutaia Domain, 8km from O¯ po¯ tiki, and is believed to be 2000 years old.