I recently spent three nights at Little Waipa Reserve in a caravan with my Dad.

We were pleasantly surprised to find it’s a beautiful, scenic spot by the river. There’s access to the river cycle paths too, which we saw a few people using over the weekend.

Since it’s winter, we unsurprisingly had frosts on two out of the three mornings, and we were a bit worried about getting stuck in the site we chose near the water, but thankfully, we had no problems because the days were mostly sunny.

Around a dozen other groups were set up throughout the site, but it remained relatively quiet and serene. You can hear a bit of road noise, though it was never bothersome. Some people had their dogs even though somewhere on this site it said no dogs allowed. Thankfully, they were well-behaved and quiet dogs.

Phone reception is a bit patchy, depending on where you park. I found the best signal (two bars) was in the toilet block 😄. There are a few rubbish and recycling bin locations, a couple of picnic tables, free BBQs spread throughout the site, two long-drop toilets, and two free hot water showers. There is NO place to get potable water. The nearest one we found was in Tirau. Neither the toilets nor the showers have power or lighting, so make sure you have a torch for any nighttime loo dashes!

We made day trips to Putaruru Blue Springs, Tirau, and the Arapuni suspension bridge and had an overall lovely time. I wonder how busy it gets outside of winter!

Reviewed 4 months ago