Photo recall: Damp in the camp but so what?

Joanne Munro and brother Andrew at Pinewoods motor camp. Picture researcher / Emma Walter

Raincoats on and hoods up, Joanne Munro and her little brother, Andrew, gazed out from their pup tent during a rainy summer's day at Red Beach on the Hibiscus Coast.

It was the summer of 1979/80 and the Munro family were spending their summer holidays at Pinewoods Motor Camp. Long days of sunshine on the beach - until the rain arrived just in time for the New Year.

Soggy conditions or not, 9-year-old Joanne and her 6-year-old brother loved the annual family summer holidays at the motor camp.

Their parents slept in a caravan while the siblings bunked under the awning.

Days were filled with old-fashioned games such as egg and spoon races and sack races, strictly enforced three-minute turns on the trampoline, swimming and movie nights. "We'd leave [the caravan] in the morning with sunscreen on and come back for tea. We used to get so excited about going there. When I was about 16, my parents bought a section at Leigh and built a bach. I remember being absolutely devastated."

The day that the New Zealand Herald's photographer arrived to photograph the damp campers, it had been particularly wet. But just as the photographer turned up, the weather cleared, Joanne said ... so someone volunteered to hold a hose to provide the necessary effects.

The family never returned to Pinewoods, but she had visited an old friend from the camp who now owns a bach at Red Beach. And while the motor camp still operates, Joanne says much of it now provides a permanent home for elderly residents.

"In my day, it was all just families with caravans and tents."

She was pleased to find there was still a healthy activities committee. "It's a good camp in that sense."

Joanne Munro is now Joanne Chaplow, a mother of four children aged under 11. They are holidaying at Matarangi Beach in the Coromandel this summer - and she'd love for her kids to have a special summer place like she did.

Not for her, though, a return to caravans or tents. "I like my home comforts too much now"

And with the price of beachside real estate beyond reach, the family usually rents.

"I would like to get something so we could go to the same place," she muses. "It's not a good decision in the financial sense - but it would be good to instil memories in my kids."