We asked for and luckily received a tent for Christmas so we thought we should put it to good use, our first trip was an overnight stint in Rotorua at a holiday park. Our second outing was a two night stint at Upper Mangatawhiri Campground in the Hunua Ranges which are approximately an hour away from the Auckland CBD.
We stumbled across the regional parks website for Auckland where we looked at which camp grounds were available over the time we were looking for. We knew that the Hunua Ranges was one of the things we wanted to do before we leave Auckland so it was an easy decision to look here, the Upper Mangatawhiri Campground sounded like our best option.
A phone call (well three to be precise, after a phone malfunction and a third call to confirm the booking went through) to the Regional Parks office we were booked in at the low price of $6 each per night. Yep this was going to be real camping, no real toilet block, no heated swimming pool and no cooking facilities!
There is plenty to do in the Hunua Ranges including Mountain Biking, Walking, taking a photo inside a huge photo frame and camping.
Our first stop was the Hunua Falls which are pretty cool, you can take a photo while standing inside a gigantic photo frame and the falls are only a few meters from the car park which is a win for those who don’t want to go for a long walk. We also followed a few tracks for a little bit as we though we would be able to get up to the top of the falls but we couldn’t work out how without taking a track which was going to take three hours (in jandals, no thanks!).
The next stop was our camp ground – which was completely empty. No tents, not another soul around. I was a bit confused and wondered if we were at the right place, but the sign made it pretty obvious we were at the Upper Mangatawhiri Camp ground – and we hadn’t ventured out of the Hunua Ranges so we chose a spot (there was a lot of space to choose from!) and got to setting up our tent.
The campground was literally just an empty field where you could pitch your tent. There were also two wooden BBQ’s which you could use if you brought your own wood. We didn’t take our own wood however there was some left there from people who had been before us so we did use it a couple of times.
I was pleasantly surprised when we discovered that the toilets were actually flushing toilets and not just a long drop like I had expected. We spent two days just chilling, I started and finished a book while we were there plus listened to a few podcasts (the only technology we used were our ipods, there was no cell phone service).
We walked just up the hill to check out the Mangatawhiri Dam once the sun wasn’t in full force (what a scorcher of a few days we have had!), the dam is pretty cool and big and you are able to go fishing in it for trout if you have the correct permit. You can also do some long hikes from here and the Challenge mountain bike loop begins up this way as well.
One morning we also went for a Mountain bike ride, we did the Moumoukai Farm Loop Track which is around 15km and graded medium. We did the ride in the morning and even then the sun was pretty hot! You are in the bushes for about half of the ride which does help.
I am not the best cyclist and I will admit I had a couple of accidents, one which saw blackberry bushes stabbing me from almost every direction and was the result of a loss of concentration then rolling my ankle when I put my foot down. By the end of the bush I was sick of tree branches hitting me and my ankles were not impressed after rolling it and hitting them a few times
I did enjoy the bike ride on the Moumoukai Farm Loop Track, however cutting back a few of the branches (mostly blackberry!) wouldn’t hurt!
Overall I really enjoyed our couple of days camping and am looking forward to doing some more over the next few months, up until the weather gets colder. I am not camping in winter, it was cold enough over night in the Hunua’s! We woke up after the first night to thick fog everywhere!
Have you ever been camping before?