Matauri Bay Holiday Park — Local services in Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community

I have been here twice this year. My first stay in June was amazing - would have given 5 stars. My second stay in October, however, was good to start with, but ended with an ultimate low.

The campground has a communal fridge in the kitchen area where my friends and I stored our food during our stay. We fished each day we were there and stored about 7-8 kgs of fish fillets in the fridge by the end of the trip (which we intended on taking back for friends and family). On our final day, we discovered all our food and hard-earned fish had gone missing the previous night. Upon reporting this to the campground staff, they were pitiful and apologetic and offered to check the security cameras which was kind of them. They quickly found footage of the thief, and gladly showed it to us. They said they guessed who the thief was before seeing the footage - they later revealed that this person had stolen from the camp on at least 3 occasions, along with other thefts of non-food items that had occurred at the campsite. Our first question was whether they had called the police about this on other occasions - the answer was that the police don't bother visiting the campsite, so they no longer report it. Our next question was why was there were no swipe key locks on the kitchen area, when there are locks on the bathrooms and given they have had a number of thefts at the site - we are still a bit confused by their answer, but basically they said the locks were installed 15 years ago, and for some reason they didn't bother putting them on the kitchen area (??).

All up, it was a sour ending to our trip and a bit puzzling as to why no action has been taken to reduce theft. I really enjoyed staying here the first time, but I'm now reluctant to return knowing this is the approach of the campsite. Would love to see the campsite facilities be theft-proofed in the future. They have a huge number of cameras filming every inch of the site, but no locks on the kitchen / fridge.

Hopefully this will help warn future stayers, but don't get me wrong, the place is a fantastic location and the staff were friendly and helpful. Just need to sort out the security...

Beautiful beach! But just don't stay in the yellow caravan...it's ready for the dump and shouldn't be rented out to anyone! Water pump didn't work in the caravan from the very start and needed to be ripped out and totally replaced so couldn't use the water, would have been nice if it was checked beforehand. The whole caravan was falling apart, windows had massive gaps when closed, ceiling carpet was falling away from the structure of the caravan, moldy curtains. Had family staying in 3 of the other caravans and only 1 out of 4 that was in a decent standard. The only amazing thing about the place was the land and the beach.

Reply from owners response.... If it was ordered beforehand, why wasn't the person that booked it notified or even on the day we checked into that caravan?...but no, nothing at all was said so I'm sorry that is incorrect regarding the water pump as the day we arrived we filled the water pump and found out that it wasn't pumping the water so I went to the office/reception and the lady I spoke to that was very helpful got the maintenence guy to come out straight away to check it out, she told me herself that the spring had fallen out and it needs to be ripped out and replaced. I had to come back a few hours later and thats when I got told they need to order a part in so the part was not actually ordered beforehand as no body knew anything about it until I came to reception and reported it. I got told by a guy in reception "it is what it is".....LOL what a response when we had just spent well over $2000+ at your holiday park, we couldn't get another caravan because it was all booked up. I would have thought the maintenence would be checked regularly especially on the old onsite caravans. In regards to the constant changes that in fact was during Covid lockdowns and as it was a worldwide pandemic, we had to postpone to the next year, yes the dates had to change as it was a new year and a group of 19 people had to get the time off work...we did appreciate that, thank you. Glad to hear the on site accommodation is going to be checked for mold for your...

Absolute paradise for snorkelling. A lot of people here surfing, fishing and boating too. Kind and informative staff at reception. Very clean. Really nice amenities. Hot shower in shower/toilet block. Showers at the beach to rinse wetsuits/surfboards. Good kitchen facilities with plenty of room in the fridges. Camp shop sells petrol and some food items, ice cream and hygiene products. For bigger shopping, meat, cheese, fresh veges I recommend buying at KeriKeri before coming here.||This was the highlight of my New Zealand roadtrip. The biodiversity underwater is amazing! I had 6-10 meters of visibility on most of my snorkelling days (month of August). I saw 3 different type of nudibranch(clown,gem and lemon), stingrays, octopus, kahawai, snapper, trevally, parore, butterfish, spottie,squid,squid egg sacks on rock, blue maomao, puffer fish, 2 different types of kina(sea urchin) and mullet. |I stayed 5 hours straight in the water one day because I was so excited! Plenty of kelp and seaweed and nice rock formations to swim around.|No wonder DiveZone Bay of Islands comes here to do their courses.||Camp gate opens with a electric badge so security is good and the place is very secluded and surrounded by natural beauty. You can take very nice pictures from the monument on the hill and also from the dairy up the road that leads to the holiday park. ||Very nice people staying at the camp. I was offered raw fish salad in lemon coconut milk by a local kiwi man and his filipina wife. It was so good. They had prepared it themselves with fresh...