Holiday Parks

Posted by Alethea February 18, 2019

Holiday Parks

Holiday parks have been little oases in the sea of camping in New Zealand. Holiday parks are an institution all across New Zealand and different than anything I have seen anywhere else.

We escaped the rain at Fox Glacier. This was one of the nicer parks we stayed at.

They are part campground, part hostel, part motel. Some are independent and others part of national chains. They all seem to have similar features such as a variety of accommodation options, from camping to spartan rooms to more traditional motel rooms.

Some parks are located in incredibly beautiful spots, like this one at Fox Glacier, with mountains behind it. Others are more industrial and have more of an RV park feeling.

There all have shared kitchen and eating spaces, shared bathrooms, laundry, and communal hang out spaces like lounges inside and playgrounds for kids outside.

This is one communal kitchen/eating area.

The really neat things about Holiday Parks is that the communal spaces allow for spontaneous conversations, good people watching, and a nice sense of community, even when you didn't say a word to another person. Simply all being in the same space and doing similar things provided a sense of "being in it together." We always enjoyed seeing what others were cooking and were often impressed by the meals that travelers, Europeans in particular, were putting together. Each park has its own personality and I found that the ones on the North Island had a strong presence of New Zealanders who were there making their own summer holidays.

Some seemed to be set up for a solid week of vacation in the park with all the accouterments of camping that we have come to know as the Kiwi way. As we went further south on the south island (and as it neared the end of summer vacation for the locals), the holiday parks seemed to be filled more with visitors from all over the world. At one we met three young Chileans who were taking advantage of the New Zealand work visa and had just spent 2 months picking cherries and were now travelling. I laughed when we learned that back home they were a mining engineer, an architect and a lawyer. They said their families all thought they were crazy working as cherry pickers. In another park there was a strong presence of bicycle tour groups with a couple of groups of Germans staying a night on a bike tour. And another memorable stop was filled with hang gliders who had congregated for the New Zealand hang-gliding championships. There it was fun to listen in to their talks and sneak looks at their computer screens that had computer models of flight plans and wind patterns.

We landed in Holiday parks a half dozen times during our 6 weeks in New Zealand. The reasons were always varied, sometimes it was when we just really needed to do laundry and have hot showers. Another time it was to escape the rain, once we had driven to what felt like the end of the earth to find that the DOC campground truly was fully booked (the only time that happened) and we had to retreat to a Holiday Park. Regardless of the reason it was always a nice reprieve from camping (even when we still stayed in our tent). I always loved the chance to do laundry, wash our dishes and ourselves with hot water and have some space to relax under a roof. The kids loved the playgrounds and the ever present "bouncing pillow" or trampoline. Leo usually got caught up on email and was able to exchange a book at the book exchange. Basically, we were all content.

The holiday park experience was woven throughout our six weeks in New Zealand and was overall a really positive one. The downside is that, like much of New Zealand, it is expensive, and even more so for a family. Most accommodations in New Zealand are per person, so even for one tent, a family of five is almost a hundred dollars. To camp this seems expensive and it really had to be a time we wanted to take advantage of the rest of the amenities. That said, when we needed them, the parks were a welcome stop.