Others have written about the great opportunities for touring New Zealand using the numerous ‘freedom camping’ opportunities that the country offers. We decided to do it a different way by hiring a much smaller campervan than the Sunlight T58 we use at home and using those appreciable hire fee savings to stay on campsites for the facilities we needed to really enjoy our holiday.
Vintage ’Vans expert, Martin Watts, would have been impressed by the 1994 Townace, A’m Craft, European Motor Home Mini, which is built on a Toyota chassis, but is unlike anything I have seen in his monthly reviews of vintage ’vans. At only 4.8m long, it was certainly very compact and, although described as self-contained, with only one gas ring for cooking and a tiny toilet/shower compartment, we decided to use the facilities that campsites could offer us.
We picked it up near Auckland airport and our first destination was Tauranga, a town on the Bay of Plenty, about a threehour drive south and west of our arrival point. We had booked into the Cosy Corner Holiday Park because it was close to the long sandy beach, had all the facilities we needed and, most importantly, was within walking distance of the Mount Maunganui cricket ground where England were due to play New Zealand in a test match over the next few days.
On our drive across this part of the North Island we saw evidence of the damage caused by Cyclone Gabrielle just a few days before we arrived. This caused a few changes to our itinerary, but nothing that
