KiwiCamp National Park — Hotel in North Island

This is BY FAR the worst place I've ever camped at in my whole life - and definitely in New Zealand. What is this abomination of an overnight carpark? How can anyone be satisfied with this?? If you've ever spent the night at an airport, thats the feeling you'll get here. So if you love that you'll be pleased. First of all, there are around 100 streetlights blasting on you the whole night through - whoever made that decision should be made to sleep here until they develop midnight sun madness! LIGHTS OUT AT 10!! at the latest! Why is that even a thing someone needs to point out?! Couple this with 24 hour surveilance cameras at the amenities block and their "digital honesty box" - it has nothing to do with honesty when you clearly dont trust people at all! - not even a sink to wash dishes in can be used without paying upfront, prices are only online, probably to break people who have been sleep deprived... if you have an app where people need to look up things in order to tend to their daily needs you need to provide wifi btw. Or just make cash an option and print your price table!! To anyone thinking about staying here: If you want to do the tongariro crossing i propose you sleep at one of the beautiful free campsites east of the national park and on the day of the hike simply drive to the end-point and have a shuttle take you from there to the start point. Viola! no need to stay at the national park village at all (its super loud no matter where you stay here anyways due to train station and airport)...

The spot itself is very convenient and close to all kinds of walks in the Tongariro National Park. You can even get picked up here and dropped off for 60$/person for the Tongariro Crossing. The only thing that we didn’t like was… the KiwiCash (now Penny) set up. You have to have a badge to use the showers and stoves - why not via smartphone dear team?! The shower was good after the walk but it’s - like very often in NZ - very low installed; there are no curtains, so either you take pretty much nothing with you into the shower or your stuff gets a little wet - hooks are provided; as soon as you clock in with your badge (and therefore pay with your pre prepaid budget) the timer on the wall runs no matter if the water is switched on or off so make sure you are ready to jump in. 2$ for 5 minutes is fair BUT as mentioned above: no matter if the water runs or not - the timer runs, so make it a quick wash with the shampoo or you stand there with lots of foam… and no running water! Toilets are great during the day. Clean - we saw a couple cleaning in the morning 👍🏼 Somehow they safe on the electricity bill when it’s dark: the light is very (!) weak so perhaps you want to bring along a torch/smartphone. Dump station and fresh water tap available! Bottom line: it is actually a nice spot but wasn’t thought through completely in our opinion...

Very new and clean spot to camp. Basically a large parking lot, close to 200 spots, if I remember correctly. Simple camp spots, toilets, grey water dump and drinking water refill are free. For showers, laundry, cooking space and sinks with hot water for dish washing, you'll need kiwi cash. An app where you exchange $$ for kiwi cash. You can then tab your phone at kiwi cash pay stations above the facilities you want to use. We found this system a bit inconvenient. You'd have to buy a "key" to load all the cash onto in the first place, which is around $5, I think. And since there are not that many spots where you can use kiwi cash nationwide, we didn't use it. I don't really get the benefit of using this app or paying method. I would pay with paypal or cash no problem.

There are a few powered camp spots too, You'd have to get a "secure" camp spot, which was $10 per night. + $10 for power. so basically $20 just for power. All only payable with kiwi cash.

Facilities are clean and new and if you use kiwi cash app anyway it is a very great and practical spot to camp, refill, launder or shower. You also get a nice view of Mount Ruapehu and we heard some Kiwis at night.

Things to know: The lights of the parking lot are on all night. In the morning it gets busy as this is also a starting point for the shuttle busses to Tongariro...