Local expectations exceeds freedom campers' needs in Takaka

Sunday, 20 January 2019

Travellers love it but locals aren't quite so enamoured by the freedom camping site at Waitapu Bridge in Golden Bay. This video was first published in January 2019.

As freedom campers flood into Golden Bay, only two sites offer them a place to stay for the night, and one is 'disgusting' says a Takaka woman.

But it's not the travellers turning Takaka's Waitapu Bridge into what Sarah Manson said was an undesirable place to stay.

The Waitapu Bridge site is the closest site to Takaka for freedom campers. It has toilets, it's right on the river and has shelter under the bridge with plenty of room for parking, making it a haven for travellers.

Manson, who owns a Takaka clothing store, said it may appear to campers to be the perfect spot on the river, but it needed to be cleaned up.

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Italian Juri Clari said he had heard there was unrest between locals and travellers but, in his view, it was unfounded.

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'If it rains, there's big muddy puddles there for weeks on end, it doesn't drain [and] there's big piles of gravel down there.'

She said the tidal river made it 'quite dangerous'

During high tide and a lot of rain, campers in their vehicles had been caught out on the river bed despite a caution sign.

'Locals have been called out at any time of the morning to rescue freedom campers from rising waters in their vans.'

She said a tidier site would leave the tourists with betters memories of their New Zealand experience.

'We should fully welcome them into this town because they do actually contribute. They come in here and buy stuff, they buy stuff from the cafe, they contribute to the economy, they're a really big part of the tourist industry.'

Golden Bay local Sarah Manson says the freedom camping area needs to be cleaned up.

Manson said it wasn't just camp sites that needed an overhaul.

Many local's attitude towards the budget campers had become less favourable over the past few years as numbers grew.

'We're inundated by freedom campers.

'Every single weekend there's a party or a festival here in the Bay in January, starting with New Year's Eve. Now we've got Luminate at the end of the month and every weekend in between there's a party or a festival.'

Nelson local, Steve Kelly, has freedom camped over the hill for a number of years and said he avoided the Waitapu Bridge spot.

'It's often packed and it doesn't feel like a nice site. It's not really been looked after.'

But down at Waitapu Bridge, it was a different story from Europeans enjoying the summer break.

German freedom camping couple Joran Ebeloe and Nina Krampe said the site was 'very clean'.

Nina Krampe, left, and Joran Ebeloe from Germany, say the issue was a lack of rubbish bins. If there were big bins at the campsite, the problem would be gone.

Krampe said compared to a free site in Motueka, the Waitapu spot was great.

Ebeloe said a frustration with freedom camping was the lack of rubbish bins.

He said they kept their rubbish until they stayed in camp grounds but without paying to camp, there was little option for waste disposal when many bins were full.

Even the public street bins were already filled by travellers, he said, 'so put big bins on the free camps and the problem is [gone]'.

Tasman District Council regulatory manager Adrian Humphries said it was looking at how to utilise the Waitapu site better without ruining it for the locals.

'Obviously it's never going to be a pristine flat site. At the end of the day, it's a riverbank and it gets flooded so it's just a case of trying to use it better.'

He said facilitating freedom camping was about finding a balance between enabling the campers and not 'abusing the ratepayers financially'.

Italian freedom camper, Juri Clari, was cycling around New Zealand.

He said he had heard there was unrest between locals and travellers about waste left at sites and their lack of contribution to the economy, but he said it was unfounded.

Most campers took away their rubbish in plastic bags, himself included, he said.

'And if I see it around, I'm going to pick up other rubbish, I'm not going to leave it there.

'I carry it on the bike for three or four days until I can find a place where I can put the rubbish.'

Clari said travellers were often getting blamed for what locals had left behind.

Waitapu Bridge was a 'lovely, comfortable' spot, he said.

'You can have beautiful view, you can go to town very quickly with the bike and another good thing, there's not so many sandflies.'