Free campers not welcome in Queenstown

A free or minimal fee area that has toilets is the obvious solution. Backpackers make up a huge percentage of the tourists in New Zealand. They only come here with the hope that they can sleep in their van. I know this for I am a backpacker, I do have a van and I sleep in it when accommodation is too expensive. While in NZ, I have yet to defecate anywhere except in toilets. Before I leave NZ, I will have spent around $30,000, earned about $20,000 and paid at least 2,000 in tax. Before I came, I dreamed about the van I was going to buy here. If buying a van and traveling around on the cheap wasn't an option, I would never have come. Plenty of people like me contribute a lot to your economy and that's why you should consider us NZ. After all, it is Money that makes the world go 'round, isn't it?

Get real. Vehicles etc with self contained toilets must be permitted The only ones that may pay a fine anyway are the Kiwis and I will be encouraging them not to. More quasi cops - just what over regulated Nanny state NZ needs. Refuse to pay all you real Kiwis!! And take an implement to dig a small hole for those caught short.

Even if camper vans have chemical toilets they still empty them roadside. We need more effluent disposal sites and of course I agree with others that we need more toilets at holiday resorts. Rubbish bins are terribly lacking also so come on councils your 50% to blame.

I've camped before in some of the "cheap" parks in the area, and was shocked with what we had to pay...I'm talking about an empty paddock beside a river....It had one toilet in the middle....and per person, it ended up being REALLY expensive. I can understand "pay toilets" perhaps, or even just a simple"donation box", but it feels so wrong that I, a NZ citizen has to pay to sleep in a tent out in the middle of nowhere. I cannot defend the awful people who leave their waste behind, I would never have done that. Like drunks who also go in public, I suppose those people will always be about and are always the kind that ignore rules, they cannot be stopped, only hopefully deterred.

The loos have been built and provided for years, areas set aside, which is $2 a night, but the tight scum park at the top of the road for the night leaving trash and their human waste. We see it day after day, month after month. Self contain campers are generally fine and do care, but I have seen the Scandinavian's in a fully contain camper who crapped out side their campervan door in the township after a night out when I was going to work on a Sunday morning. I have been flagged down by others wanting to know where there are free showers in Queenstown! Do they have free anything in their country? I dare you to come and step in our shoes or their poos and see if it helps change your mind as to this disgusting trend that will be, and has to be dealt with. This is not one off stuff and not just Queenstown. It is continous and progressively worsening.

If people touring our beautiful country, from New Zealand and overseas can't afford to use motor camps and parks offering proper toilet facilities then they should stay at home. Why should it cost us ratepayers and taxpayers money to clean up the filth that these bludgers are leaving behind. As to them spending more money if they can find "free" places to camp, please read the previous sentence again.

No one owns the world or any bit of it. We come into the world with nothing and we leave the world with nothing so why be greedy amongst something that does not even belong to you

Agree with Thomas. What is needed is a solution not fines. Why the 10km exclusion zone? Set aside an area, build some loos, and get the wardens to collect $5 from each person or vehicle each night.

So another part of Aotearoa becomes reserved for the "Rich Pricks" and to "Hell" with the Kiwi families camping and taking the kids on a Kiwi Experience. Thirty Years ago a took my family on a Tour of the South and except for Nelson Province it was a glorious time. Rob.

How about they stop charging exorbitant accommodation prices in the township, then people won't feel the need to free camp.