Papamoa Beach reflects revolution in camp grounds

By COLIN MOORE

Camping grounds are rarely camping grounds nowadays - they are holiday resorts or holiday parks. They contain cabins, tourist flats and chalets and lots of caravans locked up for the winter and going nowhere, which is why you don't see many caravans on the road these days.

You won't find a better example of the evolution of the traditional camping ground than at the Papamoa Beach Holiday Resort.

Papamoa Beach is familiar with evolution. A colleague tells me that the beach has been ravaged. He says it was once empty sand dunes, a great place for family camping, and you could pick tuatuas off the beach. Now it is kilometre after kilometre of cheek-by-jowl suburbia.

He's half right. The beachfront road from Mt Maunganui to Papamoa is the longest urbanised ocean road in New Zealand - around 20km of houses all facing the Pacific Ocean and not a fibro bach among them.

These are huge homes, many in a sort of mock-Mediterranean style with stucco fencing and palms in the landscaped courtyards.

But thanks to some surprisingly enlightened environmental planning, the sand dunes are mostly still there as public reserve and there is ongoing protection work to stop erosion.

Money hasn't been able to buy this beach. The mansions are set back from the foreshore reserve or are on the other side of the ocean road.

And while a full tide prevented me from checking it out, I am reliably informed that tuatuas are still there for the picking.

But Papamoa is no longer an old-style camping spot, if indeed such a thing exists outside Department of Conservation camps.

In the extensive grounds of the holiday resort there are 220 caravan sites, about 150 of which have permanent caravans, nine cabins, one tourist cabin, three tourist flats, four motel units, four spa villas, nine villas and 40 tent sites.

That's quite a turnaround since the Crosby family took over the camping ground in 1966.

Bruce Crosby worked for his father for 20 years before buying his siblings out 15 years ago. He is a leader in the drive for tourism in Tauranga. He's also achieved something that no one else on this lengthy stretch of coast from the Mount to Papamoa has - he has built luxury accommodation at the water's edge.

After a three-year battle to get resource consent and establish a complex regime of sand dune care, Crosby has built 11 luxury villas on the beachfront.

Four have huge spa baths in bathrooms designed so that you can lie back and watch the waves breaking on the beach just below.

It is raining when I arrive so I lie back on a comfy cane chaise longue to chase away a nagging headache while watching seagulls play on the wind, and muse that accommodation at this price doesn't get any better.

The view stretches as far as the Mount and in the morning I take a quick dip in the sea, just a few metres away down a path defined in the dunes so as to avoid erosion.

* From December 26 to January 31 the beachfront villas cost $200 a night based on four-person occupancy. The spa villas cost $200 a night for two people. For the rest of the year, the villas cost $120 a night for one to two people and $15 for each extra person. The spa villas cost $150 a night for one to two people.

Cabin and tourist flat rates range from $38 to $70 a night and are higher in peak season. Caravan and tent site tariffs vary depending on the location in the park, time of year, length of stay and number of people.

Contact:

Papamoa Beach Holiday Resort

ph: (07) 572 0816

e-mail: resort@papamoabeach.co.nz

e-mail for villas: beachfront@papapmoabeach.co.nz