Happy campers join hosting team

Megan and Joao Machado with their 6-year-old twins, Mateo (left) and Mikah, are camp volunteers at Tawharanui. Photo / Nick Reed

Family see volunteer role as the perfect way to get to know parks, help the community and get a great holiday

A few years ago, Tourism Queensland spurred a host of other publicity bodies to host copycat searches for the Best Job in the World. The genius idea that went viral was to advertise for enthusiastic travellers to promote a special destination and, in the process, generate enormous publicity for said destination. That campaign attracted more than 34,000 applicants and was won by some British bloke who was worried his swimming wasn't up to Aussie standards, but who excelled at the blogging and media updates the job required.

A similar hunt has been running here, sans the global media fuss, for some years. This summer, Sue Hill, senior ranger for Auckland Council's regional parks, is on the look-out for volunteer camp hosts at Wenderholm, Tawharanui, Mahurangi and Shakespear.

Hosts come from all over New Zealand - we spoke to folks who roam in their campervan, others who make the annual trip from Hastings to their favourite, Wenderholm.

Some come from closer to home. Joao Machado and his wife Megan live close enough to the city for Mr Machado to bike to work, but for the past four summers have headed north to host at Tawharanui campgrounds. They started hosting when their twin boys, Mateo and Mikah, were just toddlers, but camping was always part of their life.

"We were camping there before we were married, before kids," says Mr Machado, a Brazilian who married a Kiwi girl. "It was back before the predator fences, I'd gone back as a volunteer. I have a relationship with Tawharanui, and have always stayed here."

Mr Machado had grown up sailing around his home city of Rio de Janeiro, was attracted here by the America's Cup in 1996 and came back to do his graduate studies in 1998. For the summer of 2000, after his degree in environmental studies and resource management, he'd been a student ranger, so when he came back holidaying with his family, ranger Maurice Puckett enthused him about hosting.

"When I was a student, I'd got to know another couple who'd been long-term hosts," says Mr Machado. "And then last year, one of their sons was a student ranger when I was a camp host. People establish long-term relationships with the park, and then can share it with international visitors."

Mr Machado likens the now-pristine environment -- thanks to the predator fence and the efforts of the Tawharanui Open Sanctuary and Auckland Council -- to Great Barrier Island, with native vegetation returning, wetland replacing the scrubby old pines, rare birds such as the takahe and kiwi, and the revitalisation of sea life with the marine reserve.

After a few weekend stints as hosts, the Machados last summer spent a glorious three weeks hosting. Their boys are old hands, making friends with the gangs of kids who come and go at the two camp sites. They're big enough now to accompany the rangers on thrilling jobs like baiting and checking predator traps -- learning conservation as they go -- and spotting kiwi on their night hunts.

"It's a big event, you have to be really, really quiet, but now you see one just about every time," says Mr Machado. The only downside is the boys have to make new friends as each batch of campers moves on -- most can stay only a week in peak season.

Their parents' job is not too onerous: helping the rangers with morning and evening tours of the sites, checking that campers are legitimately booked in, hushing the noisy ones and generally helping visitors get to know the park. No cleaning -- the ranger deals with the tough stuff. The family's biggest problem is deciding where to set up tent -- the tent-only site fits 200 campers, the mixed site on the north coast fits 80.

"Every time we go somewhere different, and every time we've said 'right, this is the best spot'," Mr Machado laughs. "One of the special things is that even when the place is full, it still feels empty. You're not camping on top of each other."

The Machados happily tell other young families that this is the perfect way to get to know their parks, help their communities and get a terrific family holiday. "There are guys who've done it for years. We can see why ... it's terrific for young families."

To apply to be a ranger at one of Auckland's big four regional parks - Wenderholm, Shakespear, Tawharanui or Mahurangi - you need your own camping gear. Email the senior ranger at sue.hill@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz