{"id":923,"date":"2021-05-09T13:56:38","date_gmt":"2021-05-09T13:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/?p=923"},"modified":"2025-05-22T16:35:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T16:35:30","slug":"freedom-camping-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/?p=923","title":{"rendered":"Freedom camping changes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

here we go again with another round of legislation changes to clamp down on the filthy door sliding tourists. this is perhaps the fourth time these bylaws have been written in some places such as marlborough<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and we are in for another round of the same kind of heavy handed compliance issues we have come to know and hate. What it has done is driven a wedge further between public and freedom campers. It was never much of an issue once and the cost to stay in a camp ground wasn’t as inhibitive as it is now and the numbers weren’t as great. There were rubbish bins provided and people just parked where they wanted and had a good time’ and there weren’t high rise buildings and rich folk lining the shores expecting pristine views either.. but then came the tourists and it all changed instead of a visitor from another country, a tourist, you were a noodle eating van door sliding vagrant who just wanted to litter and go poo anywhere they liked and don’t get me wrong, in some cases that’s exactly what happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you can hardly blame some folk for needing to go somewhere when there is a lack of places to go anymore. Not that is the only issue with them not using facilities. Sometimes there just lazy or were caught short but does that mean we should write bylaw after bylaw, higher security guards, issue large fines and force everyone to travel around with their vehicles with three days worth of poop? So what was the result after the last rewrite of bylaws? did it change anything? Yes it did. It forced many sites to close and crammed more people into places, too small for larger vehicles and chocked of access to the general public to places like parks and beaches. Then came the fines and more security guards but wat was perhaps worse was the the negative press that tourists and travellers of all walks of life have gotten as a result of the mess. So what started it? Well there were the camp ground owners who saw all this lovely money coming into the country and they weren’t getting any of it. It costs our family $75 a night to stay on an unpowered site at a camp ground. it would be cheaper to rent a house or at least it was once upon a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there were the home owners of costal properties who had to look past white campers to see their expensive views. then there was the NZMCA who wanted to get some cushy number for their members so introduced the freedom camping self containment standard, which of course is voluntary even though people have been fined for breaching it. Councils had begun moving rubbish bins away from public places and forcing people to take their rubbish home. that way the council didn’t have to pick up the tab even though it was covered in the rates and is commonly touted as an affront to poor rate payers that council must now supply bins at freedom camping spots. Well they used too before. so now they want to make some more changes and as usual that involves larger fines and even less places to park resulting in what’s already gotten out of hand and promises to just be the same old sheep in different clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the middle of this sandwich you find the Kiwi traveller, the homeless and those who live , travel and work all over New Zealand, Usually the lower economic representation of people. So what happens next is anyone’s guess and you would probably be right. More of the same with a chance of greater unhappiness from all concerned. It’s gotten to the point that when we think of traveling again the first thing i think about is not the excitement of the journey but freedom camping bylaws and where i can and cant park, which changes more than the weather in some parts of New Zealand. We are a post covid nation with diminished tourism, according to the businesses in Queenstown but we still go on like it was pre covid in tourist numbers. Did someone not get the memo? Did common sense go out the window? they want harsher penalties and better loos in vehicles. and if your not self contained you have to stay at a camp ground. Bet they would love that? So what about Maori? generally they park and stay wherever they like if they know their treaty rights but what about us colonial’s? don’t we have rights under the same treaty? let alone the bill of rights? Well i guess we will find out shortly as the fifth round of sloppy bylaws gets passed around and this time it will be more New Zealanders paying the price. Some say well that’s just how it is. Loosing freedoms surely is. Didn’t have that attitude during the war. Didn’t say well if hitler or the Japanese want this land then i guess we should just give it too them. I think any person who travels full time knows what is needed to fix the mess were in with camping. they have been saying it all along. more infrastructure and more places to park so that not everyone ends up at the same beach with limited parking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s hard not to get worked up about the stupidity, greed and self centeredness of the countries leaders and the self entitled. At the end of the day they will loose the tourist industry and the money that came from it just when we are in need of serious cash flow after Covid. it’s going to be an interesting future but not in a nice way if people keep wanting to take the hard line approach on everything. What we need is a free for all and i hear the critic’s cry out’ no no no. but they grew up when it was free for all. Doesn’t seem right to withhold from our kids something we enjoyed and the pettiness of it feels so wrong. Once again it’s a 1 am post just because i happened to see the news. why do i do that to myself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

here we go again with another round of legislation … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2888,"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/2888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivetogether.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}