Camping - memories

New Zealanders share their camping stories with AA Directions.

"When I was a teenager the Magasiva clan went camping every year. But it wasn’t camping like people do now; it was real camping in a paddock with no facilities. Rough camping. You took everything that you needed and took it all out again at the end.

One year – I would have been about 14 – we had a particularly memorable camping trip because our cousins, the Fillis, came with us.

It was on the Wairarapa Coast. We had two tents for the younger kids and the parents, but us older kids got the best deal. My dad gave us a piece of plastic, and in groups of two, we had to make our own shelter – to last the whole camping trip.

Luckily, back in those days, it never rained the entire summer.

Pailate and I had the best shelter because we found a tree that we utilised as part of our structure. Then there was Va’a and Steven under another piece of plastic, and Mickey and Iuelu in the last one. Some nights we didn’t even bother with our plastic shelters and just lay under the stars. We never actually slept because it was too uncomfortable.

Our days were much the same through the whole holiday. Get up in the morning, round up all the kids and drive down to the beach on the back of the truck, then take the crayfish pots out and spend the morning swimming. Come back for lunch. Head back to the beach to swim for the afternoon and then, at about 4pm, bring in the crayfish pots. Eat like kings on a feast of crayfish. Light a bonfire in the paddock and then lie down under our plastic until we could get up and do it all again the next day. The perfect holiday."

Robbie Magasiva, actor in the upcoming film Sione’s 2: Unfinished Business

"Travelling north on business the other day, out of the blue I had the urge to pack some matches, a newspaper, an old grate and a few chops. Nothing else.

Forget eating at a hotel, I wanted to sprawl on sand, smell of smoke and carefully feed bleached salty bones of driftwood into orange flame. A clean, clear night. No interference. No white noise.

I’ve camped all over the world – from Africa to Antarctica – but it’s a Kiwi beach and the raw elements of smoke and flame, roasted meat and red wine that I crave. With dusk settling on the hills. My dog busy up a dune. Watching out for the first star."

Mark Scott, writer

"I first stumbled upon the whitebaiters’ camp years ago while fly fishing for the sea-run brown trout. On a gravel river bar south of Haast, there was a small suburb of motorhomes, caravans, tents and lean-tos. There was a communal campfire out of a 44-gallon drum and a circle of foldable chairs, which broke open to allow my own one to be added. The people were from all over the South Island – businessmen, farmers, travelling retirees – a veritable tribe of temporary nomads chasing shoals of little fish that look like squirts of silicone window sealer.

I’ve been coming to camp there ever since, to fish, to sit by the fire on an empty beach, to look at the sunsets and listen to the sea, once to watch the comet McNaught streak towards the Southern horizon.

It always feels like camping at the edge of the world."

Derek Grzelewski, author of The Trout Diaries

"I was very young when I was first taken camping – too young to remember anything about the experience. So, for me, sleeping in a tent began when I was about four years old. The tent in question had been brought out from Manchester with my parents. It was amber-coloured and small – a two-person alpine tent in which the four members of my family slept.

Laying out my parents’ tent was a little like rolling out a section of turf. If you were lucky, and the ground smooth, you could give the tent a flick and a tug and it would more or less unfurl by itself. At once, the earth and wood-smoke scents of previous trips would be released, heightening my sense of excitement.

When the tent was laid out, blanket-like, I would be handed a pole and then I would wriggle inside with the job of locating the small hole towards the back through which the tapered end of the pole was inserted.

As I raised the pole and lifted the tent, a kind of miracle would take place. Suddenly, all traces of gloom would disappear. A beautiful amber light would settle over me. Even more wonderful would be the soft tap of sand flies, insects and beech leaves landing on the cotton fly.

Sometimes when I was alone inside the half-erected tent, maintaining my tight hold on the pole, so as to ensure it remained vertical, a South Island robin or tomtit would land on its ridge. To be inside the tent when one of these birds landed on the fabric was very special. I would see nothing but the almost black silhouette of two claws projected onto the cloth and hear the faintest scratch, as the bird hopped just centimetres above my face. The dark outlines would appear, disappear and then reappear and, each time this happened, I felt as if I were looking through some magical kaleidoscope; one that brought me close to nature and yet allowed me to remain undetected. My great love of birds came as a direct result of these early experiences. And, I think, it’s the only time in my life when I’ve experienced something like an epiphany."

Laurence Fearnley, winner of 2011 NZ Post Fiction Award for The Hut Builder

"We camped out at Karekare for many years. We would put our giant canvas tents up at Labour weekend and take them down at Easter, coming out every Friday night after work for the weekend, and staying for six weeks at Christmas. I used to stack our Model A Ford up with food and clothes, with the pillows on top of everything, and our three girls would climb in on top of the lot.

We had five hens and a rooster, Mr Grey, at our house in Papatoetoe, and we would take them all with us to Karekare when we went for the six weeks at Christmas. They would roost in their crate at night and the girls would go egg hunting in the bush each day.

Possums were everywhere at Karekare in those days. They would come in to the tents at night and eat the cat’s meat. The cat didn’t seem to mind and would just sit and watch them. When the tent was closed they could work their way in, but they couldn’t get out again and they would panic. Eventually, we just left the tent open so they could run in and out. There were so many of them, it was like an epidemic. They would rattle around the tent looking for food and keep us awake at night. So, one night my husband hatched a scheme. He tied a piece of bread to a long string of fishing line, and put it at the end of the tent. Then he attached the other end of the string to his toe. He took the gun with him when he went to bed. I thought this was hilarious, and that it couldn’t possibly work. But, sure enough, in the middle of the night the line tugged his toe and woke him up. He sat up in bed, shone his torch and shot a possum. I was woken up by the gun going off in my ear and nearly died of fright."

Edith Edney, former camper, 95

"We were camping near East Cape and I was leaning over a gas cooker stirring a pot of baked beans when I felt sharp thuds on my back. I looked around thinking some campground brats were using me for target practice, but my husband burst out laughing when he saw the streak of orange pigeon poo down the back of my sweatshirt. Wood pigeons, perched in the tree, were ‘bombing’ me with droppings containing stones from the fruit they’d gobbled. I was just pleased it ended up on me and not in our dinner."

Amanda Cropp, writer