Wasn’t Rosie only just bragging a couple days ago how great the weather was?
The joys of living on an island where the weather changes at the drop of a hat…its raining, and settling in for the next three days…New Years celebrations will be a wash out the length of the country….the only place in NZ destined to be fine is Milford, West Coast of the South Island. The wettest area in the country is the only place that is going to be sunny and dry, oh, the ultimate irony. But, as Rosie and the Operator are now fully fledged practising campers we have to take the good with the bad and the dry with the wet, its that, or pack up and go home….
We pulled into Onaero Beach Motor Camp, http://www.onaerobay.co.nz/index.html about 11 km North of New Plymouth and checked into the office cum camp shop for two nights. We were given a friendly welcome along with a map of the camp, our site was highlighted for us and an explanation of the different amenity blocks available was given.
The camp is kind of divided into 3 different areas along the banks of the bush clad Onaero River. Driving in the gate is the main camping area with grid sites clustered around the main amenity block, there is also access here to privately owned Bach’s and holiday homes that line the bank of the river. Past the office the road branches left and right, to the right across the river, accessed via a 10 tonne capacity rickety bridge is a domain style area with camping around the periphery and a huge grassy area with a playground in the middle, this area has a big new amenity block and the road leads down to the Waitara Surf Lifesaving Clubhouse and the beach front. To the left is where we were staying, it is the closest sites to the river and pretty low lying….they seemed to be the last allocated sites available in the campground….Rosie didn’t mind, there were at least two tents and a couple of caravans between us and the river. The Operator said if the river flooded in the bad weather forecast, the commotion made by the tenters would alert us and we would haul arse out of there. To be honest, this area is great, we have a view of the river mouth and the surging sea, plus there are only a handful of sites….Rosie’s not really that keen on being packed in cheek to jowl with other campers and not have a view as compensation.
We plugged the power in and opened the windows, drizzling it may be but the humidity is a killer, we set off to explore the camp on foot. Above is our campsite with a close up of the river mouth, it was high tide and the waves were surging up the river scouring the rock bank on the way in. This is a wild west coast beach with boiling waves, black sand, screeching seagulls, smooth
polished stones and plenty of washed up driftwood. The red flowering pohutakawas line the river and beach front cementing the NZ summer experience. The picture above is the area of beach in front of the Surf Lifesaving Club, it is a couple of hundred metres wide bay that would offer a sandy beach at a lower tide, the waves are pretty rough, but every area down here is pretty sheltered from the wind so it is quite pleasant.
The showers are private and work on a token system, you buy the tokens from the camp shop for $1 and this gives you seven minuets of hot water when you place the token in the machine in the showers. There is even a hairdryer in the bathroom…in a campground…unheard of but true. This camp kitchen pictured is pretty utilitarian and the other blocks have sit down tables to eat your meal at after preparing them, one also has a TV attached to the wall which was popular with the young ones in this wet weather.
to catch a herring or the occasional kahawai. There is a scenic bush reserve to the front of the camp that borders the main road and walking tracks off into the bush for the intrepid tramper. The old one lane bridge that used to be the main road link into the area is falling into decrepit ruin but leaves a lovely picture of days gone by, when you see and hear the traffic roaring past you wonder how this single lane bridge used to cope…..
