Paraha Valley Campground
I really wanted to go camping before the year ended and I only had a couple of free weekends where an overnight trip would be possible.
The first weekend the weather turned to custard a few days prior so when the weather looked promising on the only other free weekend I had before the end of the year – I jumped at it – even though I my usual +1 teen (who is now actually an adult) wasn’t available and I couldn’t guilt trip either my husband or my baby to come with me.
First things first – although I’ve camped alone before, it was in a relatively busy campground that I drove too. So I had the safety of other people around me and a car. This time as the only way to the campground is to hike in, I would have a car and although there were other people booked, you can never be too sure who (it anyone) will turn up – so I could be all alone in the “middle of nowhere” – which is fine in the daylight .. not so much in the pitch black. 😉
But .. I put brave girl (Lowa) boots on and set off.
The council website said it would take 2.5 hours to traverse the 5.7km to the campground from the Whatipu carpark and even though it’s a pretty solid uphill climb followed by a VERY steep descent on what seemed like VERY narrow stairs, it take take anywhere near that amount of time.
I arrived just over 1.5 hours after leaving the carpark which included some stops at the various look out points along the way to take in the view. Which on a bellbird day were particularly stunning.
The campground “proper” had three tiers. The top tier had the shelter and toilets, the second tier was a flat narrow band of grass which overlooked the water and the bottom tier was right next to the river. There were numerous signs that said that the bottom section floods so although it didn’t seem like it was going to rain, I opted to stay in the middle tier, which is lucky as a large group doing Duke of Ed students came in later that afternoon and filled up that entire section.
I found out when I left the next morning that the overflow of students (and a late arriving family) set up near the entrance gate – which had been mowed in sections, so if you wanted somewhere quiet, that was probably a good area to set up.
Once I’d set up camp, I wallowed in the shallow water then lay in the sun to dry out, before repeating the process (for most of the afternoon) – you can actually walk further along the river up to the waterfall, but as I was solo I thought It was better to be safe then sorry and I was happy just chilling out.
Thankfully, with a “million” teenagers excitedly running around it was anything but scary .. so I don’t know what I had been worried about.
In fact, driving down Whatipu Road was the scariest thing I did that weekend! Next time, I’ll walk in from the opposite direction so I can skip that part .. 😉
Till next time
