Opoutere Coastal Camping — Hotel in North Island

Basic but awesome! We really enjoyed staying here with our three young kids.

The location is pretty brilliant as it is just a short walk from one of the most stunning beaches we've been to. At high tide the beach can be a bit intimidating for kids as there can be a pretty strong current close to shore (it looked to ease off a bit further out), but at low tide it is much more sedate.

We stayed in the lower campground area in an unpowered site which was massive even with our big family tent and our car parked on it. There are a few picnic tables scattered around the area so we had one to share with my parents in the neighboring site, which was handy. There are also several basic rope swings hanging from trees around both halves of the camp ground.

It has all the basic facilities such as toilets, hot showers ($1 per shower), washing machines and dryers, kitchens with a very small number of gas stoves (bring your own cookware), and BBQs. They also have a chill out room that has a well used table tennis table and rather dilapidated foosball table and a small tv. Rubbish bins and recycling bins are provided.

The young guy manning the office was pretty friendly and gave us the run down (and a map) of the various walks nearby. Apparently some renegade local decided to try to hurry along the re-establishment of the native bush in the pine forest area between the camp and the beach by poisoning the pine trees, which has led to some of the tracks having to be closed due to the risk of dead branches falling from the poisoned trees.

One thing to realise is that the office hours are fairly short, so get your $1 coins when you arrive if you intend to use the shower!

The office also sells a few of the basics you might find in a dairy and they seem to do coffees too. But as best we could tell there are no takeaways in the area so you might have to go somewhere like Whangamata if you want takeaways.

There is a small river running through the camp site and there are three kayaks there you can use. If this sounds like something you might be keen to do them be aware the river is surprisingly deep, particularly upstream of the camp, and at high tide one of the bridges upstream is very low to the water making it hard to get under. Two of three kayaks have damage to them causing them to take on water and they don't have life jackets with them. These factors all combined for us to cause one very hairy moment that probably could have turned out much worse had we been a bit less fortunate. So I would recommend avoiding that combination!

I think management should investigate repairing or replacing or getting rid of the damaged kayaks, and hiring out life jackets for a few dollars. We would have paid a few dollars to do that if we had the option, particularly if we had realised how deep the innocent looking river actually is in places.

If I could give four and a half stars instead of five then I would have, but we enjoyed ourselves too much for it to get only four stars.

All in all we had a great time. If you go mid week in March you'll probably be some of the only people there and get an amazing beach...

Disappointed to have to leave a review without even staying at this campsite. My group was looking forward to our 2 night stay we had booked last month, but unfortunately Mother Nature had other ideas. With an extreme rain event bearing down in the days beforehand (MetService weather warnings were in place across the whole region) there was doubt over whether it would be safe to travel here, let alone physically accessible. As a result of the weather and ongoing slips, washouts etc. the Coromandel District declared a State Of Emergency, right in the middle of when we would have been staying. For us to travel here on this weekend against government regulations would have been highly irresponsible and potentially dangerous. From District Council SOE info available online - “Due to the dynamic nature of hazards around our district, we strongly discourage anyone from travelling around the district unless necessary”. I understand these weather events are unpredictable, and the campsite cannot in any way be blamed for external factors that are outside of their control. However, given the circumstances they have not been accomodating in the slightest. While the campsite did end up remaining accessible by SH2 and 25 the day we were due to arrive, it was in no way shape or form appropriate for us to travel, and the declaration of a State of Emergency the very next day confirms this. Our requests for a refund were all sternly denied, stating that only if all access roads were shut off completely would we be able to apply for a credit, as “all peak season bookings are non refundable”. Our email communications are now going unanswered. For perspective on this, all the other campsites we had planned to stay at have all refunded our bookings, as did our rental car hire place. Even Air New Zealand were happy to let us cancel at short notice at no cost. I understand it has been a difficult season for the coromandel to say the least, but I would have hoped we could have reached a fair solution for both parties. Ultimately this trip has been rescheduled, during which we would have loved to stay here and use those 2 nights we paid for. Instead we are out of pocket $350, and intend to...

Opoutere coastal camping is one of the loveliest well located sites with great facilities.

Set back off the beach, which is just a short walk through the pine forest. Sadly as the waters were a bit warmer recently an influx of blue bottle jellyfish at this and other beaches meant we were rather more cautious about swimming, however it is an incredibly stunning 5 km beach great for long walks.

The site is spread over several different sections allowing you to choose the area best suited for your needs.

We arrived out of hours and the camp managers have geared up for this with instructions how to access the site and a fantastically well produced map convenient located on the camp office door. We found ourselves a great pitch right on the river nestled under a tree and not another camper in our area, bliss. The feel of freedom camping with the perks of toilets, hot shower (bring $1 coins), well appointed kitchen with fridge and freezer, laundry (2x $2 coin) and even a TV room. Just a note the kitchen, showers and toilets are some of the cleanest I've ever seen in a campsite, impressive.

The couple who run the camp were so friendly and always ready to help, they brought us a picnic table from another site when they realised we had forgotten our camp chairs, which we managed to replace on our second day in whangamata only a 15 min drive away, so sweet of them.

We spent one day in the kayaks available to rent just drifting up and down the river to the estuary mouth where it can get a bit choppy when windy but fun nethertheless. Then to top it off with a icecream from the camp store/office, what could be better.

Honestly we loved our 3 nights here and would return in a flash, recommended to all, definitely book in the high season though, I would expect it to be a...