Located about an hours drive north of New Plymouth, the Three Sisters freedom camping area at Tongaporutu is a must see stopover. A drive of just under 70kms according to Google Maps, through Waitara and over Mount Messenger, through the tunnel cut into the rock over the road.
Freedom camping in the New Plymouth district
If you’re travelling up the West Coast, the Three Sisters makes a great location for freedom camping. Certified Self Contained (CSC) vehicles can stay a maximum of three nights in any 30 day period.
Freedom camping in the New Plymouth district is great. As long as you have a CSC vehicle, you can stay almost anywhere. (max of 3 nights in 30 day period) While parked at the Three Sisters, a friendly person employed by the New Plymouth district council was going around and informing people of the freedom camping regulations. Really helpful and good to know. Once you’ve stayed in one sport for those 3 nights, you simply have to move up the road, and you can stay another three. He pointed out another location, roadside, a few kilometres up the road, as it turned out I’d used my 3 nights in 30 days. (I thought it was 3 nights in a calendar month)
Check out the New Plymouth District Council bylaws for freedom camping here.
As with any popular freedom camping site, it pays to arrive early – especially in the summer. Although there’s space for a large number of vehicles, it does fill up with campers. If you’re lucky, you can get parking with waterfront views.
Freedom camping facilities
Toilets are available. No showers. No dump facilities.
Cell Phone Signal coverage is great from the camping area on Spark and Skinny phones. Almost full signal. Excellent for those who want to work from a prime waterfront location!
Parking is on grass and is hard in the summer. It possibly gets quite wet in the winter so caution with heavy vehicles to avoid getting stuck. There’s plenty of parking and turn around space for large vehicles.
There’s no shops nearby. If you need to stock up on food you’d need to head to Waitara or New Plymouth. There’s limited food shopping further along at Mokau, where you can pick up milk, bread etc or visit the local cafe.
The Mohakatino river is beautiful, and tidal near the campground. The river flows fast with the incoming and outgoing tides. The state highway is busy, with frequent trucks. However the campground which is further along is surprisingly quiet. I don’t recall being bothered by truck noise during the night.
You’ll want to plan your walk out to the Three Sisters rock formation for around 2 hours either side of low tide. When the tide is in, the beach cannot be accessed. Be sure you check the tides so as not to get stuck out there!
In actual fact there are now only two of the three rock formations remaining as the water slowly erodes the formations. In fact- there were originally four sisters. “Elephant Rock” also stood nearby the Three Sisters before losing it’s trunk to erosion in 2016.
The walk from the camping and car park area takes about 15 minutes. A word of warning – the mud is VERY slippery!
The Mohakatino river makes for really nice swimming on a hot summers day at high tide. Either side of high tide and the current of the tide is quite strong and fast.
Overall, I rank freedom camping at the Three Sisters, Tongaporutu very highly on my list of ‘must stay places’. A nice camping area, plenty of parking, beautiful scenery, an enjoyable walk out to the rocks and along the beach, great swimming, toilets available, and good cell phone reception makes for the perfect place to freedom camp.
However, with winter on the way, I’m focused on keeping warm. Check out my thoughts about installing one of those “Chinese Diesel Heaters!”