Would you pay $300 a night for a compost loo? Answering the call of nature al fresco has gone upmarket. Photo / Getty Images
Would you pay $300 a night for a compost loo? Answering the call of nature al fresco has gone upmarket. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
The best things in life are free. Like waking up in the night, only to realise you have to walk 100 metres to the closest long-drop loo.
While Kiwis have long ‘enjoyed’ the outdoors for next to nothing, there is a new but familiar travel fad that is changingthe landscape of a simple break in nature: the $300-a-night glamping pod.
Luxury is now a compostable toilet.
A growing trend that is serving nature-starved urbanites around the world has shown that the experience of peeing on gorse bushes is undervalued.
Going bush has gone bougie, and guests are paying through the nose for the opportunity to answer the call of nature under the open stars.
There are just under 400 outdoor shelters and bivouacs in New Zealand’s backcountry - if you can find them. Many charge little more than a koha or nothing for those needing to duck out in the rain or boil up a kettle.
The best seat in the house! The open air loo at Toka Biv makes the grandeur of the scenery all rather overwhelming. Photo / Supplied
Though, in recent years, Department of Conservation (DoC) huts have been running close to full capacity in some places, particularly on the Great Walk network, where an entire season’s worth of bunks sell out in seconds flat. The scarcity factor has created an unexpected market for rustic luxuries - like the inimitable odour of used walking socks.
They come in many shapes and sizes, from wheeled shepherd huts and glass cubes to safari tents.
They’ve sprouted up in farms and woods around the motu like harore mushrooms on dung, lying in wait for hapless Richard E Grant-type characters who have gone on holiday by mistake. (“Are you the farmer?”)
They are similar in many respects to a scenically appointed public hut, but at 10 times the cost.
Urinating al fresco now comes at a premium. Free to those who can afford it, prohibitively expensive to those who cannot.
And people are willing to pay.
Recently, an Australian company called Unyoked landed three huts on a farm in Raglan.
Despite charging $600 a stay for an off-grid experience, there is a months-long waiting list for the two-person huts. Composting toilet et al.
Unyoked; the start-up that creates overnight nature stays in secluded locations. Photo / Alex Gillespie
The company, which has around 100 huts outside urban centres in the UK and Australia, specialises in flogging “high-quality nature experiences” to city dwellers.
Leaning heavily on science, they propose corrugated tin roofs as an antidote to “busy, noisy, always-on life in the city”.
Access to nature is a privilege, whatever rate you pay. Though, there are places where this is taken to extremes.
The vast field of accommodation that could be camping covers anything from a $5 pitch to the $5000 a night you pay at Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Vancouver Island, which has earned a reputation as the world’s most expensive campsite.
In Kenya, Richard Branson’s Mahali Mzuri ‘tented hotel’ is regularly ranked the top hotel in the world by industry, beating brick-and-mortar properties.
Loo with a view from the MacKinnon Pass shelter. Photo / Thomas Bywater for Travel
Tarpaulin is the great social leveller. A tent is accommodation fit for a king or queen, as anyone who has watched The Crown will recall. It’s part of the royal mythology that Elizabeth II woke up as Queen under a tented canopy. Albeit, this was at the glamorous Treetops Lodge, rather than the Top 10 Taupō.
Current monarch of the glen King Charles is known for his love of going “en campagne”, bumping into mountain bikers on the Scottish moors last week. Charles III stopped for a brief chat, recounting a childhood spent camping at the bothies of the Cairngorms.
The hut is a classless egalitarian joy that has attracted many admirers, from Barry Crump to bonnie Prince Charlie.
While no one can argue that staying at eye level with an African elephant is on par with a backcountry bivouac in the Kaimai Ranges - I still maintain a golden rule for glamping:
If I’m paying over $100 a night, I expect to pee indoors.
