For the past two nights I’ve been at the campground at the Parakai,northwest of Auckland, just outside of Helensville. It is situated at the Parakai Hot Springs. The campground is fairly large on an open flat section with trees around it, buffering it from the road and from the Hot Springs parking area.. There are a couple of dozen long-term caravans and motorhomes, but most of the space is available for transient campers.

 

At $15/pp/night for a powered site, it comes with free entrance to the Hots Springs and Aquatic park. Since adult admission to the Hot Springs is $15/pp, on could also say that admission to the springs comes with a free night of camping.

 

By Sunday afternoon most of the tents and campervans are gone with only a few non-permanent sites filled. The school holidays have less than two weeks left, so I suspect those with kids are heading home.

 

 

A pleasant spot, but I don’t think I’ll stay much longer. I don’t want to end up like this.

 

I took only a short ride today, into Helensville, about 10K round trip. I was looking for an Internet cafe and a stop at Woolworths (although there is a 4 Square across the road from the camground). There were four cafes, but no Internet. Being Sunday, the library, info center and the computer store (yup, they have one in Helensville) were closed, so I couldn’t check those possibilities.