Campers stay off beaten track

Press, 22 February 1980, Page 3

Campers stay off beaten track

The biggest single group of overseas camping enthusiasts to visit New Zealand arrived in Christcurch yesterday. The Meadow Park Motor Camp was stretched to the limit as the last of 27 camper vans settled into their sites and the 50 American and Canadian travellers began to prepare an evening meal The campers are members of the International Caravanning Association. They arrived at Auckland on February 3. They will leave from Auckland on March 17 after having (travelled from Cape Reinga to Bluff. The group likes to gather at each destination as a convoy, but on the road each vehicle makes its own pace. The New Zealand representative of the association (Mr A. D. Paterson) said that the idea was to get off the beaten track and meet people. The association was formed in Britain in 1968 and has since spread all over the world, most spectaiularly in parts of Euope and North America. There were branches from Australia to South Africa, Mr Paterson said. This group had been on the road for 20 days. Its members had tramped through kauri forests and shorn sheep. They had also qualified for a special award, when in Gisborne last week, as the first caravanners in the world to see the sun rise. Mr Ivan Fox, of Burlington, Ontario, on his third camping trip overseas, is convinced his is the best way of discovering a new country. “We are not actually tourists,” he said. “We are just a group of people meeting the men and women of the country.” The highlight so far for him has been a Maori hangi at Feilding. This was especially notable because many New Zealanders present admitted they had never eaten food in that way. It was a busy tour, he said, but they were getting to know the people in a way that would be impossible by bus. While in Christchurch, the group will visit Christchurch Cathedral, the Canterbury Museum, and Lincoln College. There has also been a drive arranged on the Port Hills, but decisions about' where to go and what to do rest with the individual' campers. ' I