Hard times for a slice of Kiwiana

Peter Gaston
The future of another slice of Hawke's Bay Kiwiana - Waipatiki Beach Farm Park - is in doubt.
While Anne and Bill Perry are accepting bookings for next summer they are considering options for their 29ha property, most of which has unrestricted views of Waipatiki's golden sand beach.
They could have booked their eight cabins and 40 tent sites, half of which are powered, 10 times over for 20 days from late December to mid-January, but for the rest of the year, including a glorious day yesterday, the place was virtually empty.
Sealing the road to Waipatiki in December had resulted in a 30 percent rise in visitors but that had not been reflected in the camping ground's turnover.
"The place does not pay its way," Mr Perry said. "Both I and my wife work and we run a few head of cattle to help keep our dream of providing a place where families can have a camping holiday alive. But it cannot survive much longer. Its income is not meeting outgoings".
The problem was not confined to his operation, he said. Eight camping grounds in the Coromandel had closed in the past two years, Blue Bay Motor Camp at Mahia was being turned into a residential subdivision, the camping area at Kairakau Beach had gone and the baches at Tangoio could soon be torn down.
"Soon there would be nowhere families could go for a traditional kiwi holiday at the beach," he said.
More than 20 years ago Mr Perry began developing the camping area, carved off a 420ha block which had been settled by his grandfather in 1910.
His dream was to create an area at a safe beach that could be enjoyed by families and he did not want to throw it away.
"It's not just the beach. It's the whole environment - the cliff, beach and bush walks and the fishing. It's so healthy."
Building more cabins and creating more camp sites were not options.
Mr Perry said if he increased the size too much he would have to connect to the Hastings District Council sewage scheme at Waipatiki and that would "financially kill us".
Once his camping ground had been a popular place of call for German and Danish tourists making North Island tours. But few had called in recent years.
"Somehow Hawke's Bay has dropped off their route," he said.
"Go to Tauranga and the Coromandel and you see hundreds of campervans on the road. But they seem to bypass us. We need to get on back on the tourist route."
Mr Perry said Tourism Hawke's Bay was doing a good job promoting the region, but was attracting people for weekends and big events, "and not those interested in seeing the real Hawke's Bay."
The Perrys cannot help but look enviously at a 30-section subdivision, estimated to be worth $9 million, across a creek meandering along his boundary down to the pristine beach.
"If it gets to that I'll only sell part of the property. I still want to live here," he said.