Seaside getting closer
Campground to get much-needed love
After nearly a decade on the market, a beloved Kiwiana-style seaside holiday park that gets closer to the sea every year has a new owner with plans to lavish it with some much-needed love.
Seaview Holiday Park near Mōkau, an hour north of New Plymouth in South Waikato, is a classic Kiwi campground, with tiny, colourful baches and caravan and tent sites as close to the beach as you can get.
For generations it has been a favourite camping spot for Taranaki families and continues to be popular, despite the fact the sea feels like its encroaching on the sites more and more each year.
Stratford businessman Shane Jordan had been driving past the campground for the past 10 years as he travelled to wood-chopping competitions around the North Island.
He said he had always loved that particular stretch of beach and so two years ago he began stopping at the park during his travels to plot how he and wife Loren could make it work.
Life’s already busy for the couple who have a logging business to run and three children to raise. But eventually they got to the point where they thought “why not” and bought the property in February.
“It’s a special place where you’re pretty much sleeping on the sea. Not many places can say that,“he said.
“We were sitting there thinking ‘what the hell have we done, but why not’. We can enjoy it with our friends and family.”
The site first went on the market in 2016 and has gone through several real estate agents since then.
In 2019, the owners of the site – Michael Hammond and Mark Peacocke of Mokau Sands Limited – released their grand vision for the area, which included a cafe, transportable facilities, and a subdivision
“It’s a special place where you’re pretty much sleeping on the sea.”
Shane Jordan
with 24 sections starting at $99,000 each.
At the time they were the cheapest seaside sections in the country with unparalleled views toward Taranaki Maunga and the Tasman Sea, which regularly got close enough to touch. However, the vision was never realised and the campground went back on the market.
Mōkau locals had expressed concerns about the site being subdivided and developed, due to erosion risk, but also because they did not want to lose the classic Kiwi feel of the holiday spot.
Jordan will keep the site running as a holiday park with the current managers, but pour some much-needed care in to it. “It hasn’t had a lot of love in the last 10 years to get it up with the times. We want to put a playground in and start renovating what we’ve already got before we decide on building anything new.”
The family will continue living in Stratford but in the future may build something for themselves in the campground.
Jordan wouldn’t say how much this had cost him, but it was on the market for $1 million.
The Mōkau coastline is well known for being prone to erosion, which Jordan said would have scared a lot of people off.