It’s not often I write an opinion piece in fact all of the others that I have written are all still saved as drafts in my computer but this one has me so riled up that I feel I have no option but to publish it.

When I was a child like a lot of kids I got caught stealing lollies from the local shop, my parents were called and a serious telling off was had. Hopefully lesson learnt or if not at least knew what was right and what was wrong.

A couple of days ago we stopped at one of the many A&P Showgrounds that allow members to use their wonderful facilities. We checked in around 2pm went looking for the office and another kind motorhomer told us about the honesty system in the shed “over there” we registered paid and thought nothing more of it.

We left early the following morning to get something fixed on the motorhome that I will talk about in a later post then went sightseeing with no real intention of returning. However plans change and we found ourselves back at the same showgrounds around 4pm that same day.

Returning to the registration booth we again registered for the night and discovered that nobody had registered since we had registered the previous day- All very strange when at least another 6 motorhomers had arrived most of whom had also connected to the power supply there. I am not trying to turn myself into a curtain twitcher and wouldn’t have noticed had we not gone to reregister. and noticed nobody else had.

This A&P Showgrounds charge $5 per person with an additional $3 per van for power so way cheaper than staying at a campground yet the vast majority of motorhomers staying there had not paid.

If you went out to dinner or visited some attraction on your travels there is no way that you would use the service and then not pay. It’s theft and you know it. So why is it any different staying at one of these wonderful facilities and not paying. If you don’t want to pay go freedom camping at one of the many designated places where you can stay without paying. 

The following day we spoke to the manager of the showgrounds about another matter and I then discussed the matter of payment or lack thereof.  She then checked the honesty box to see that only ourselves and one other camper had registered and paid. She was very disappointed.

The other motorhomer that had registered and paid was a high ranking board member within the NZMCA and I hate to say it but I dropped him in it. Letting the manager of the showgrounds know that he and his wife where staying there.

The whole point of this rant is that these places provide wonderful facilities for the (in this case exclusive) use of NZMCA members. Sarah and I love staying at these sort of places. How long do you think they will continue to provide these services if we keep stealing from them!!!! The trouble is it’s not just a few people doing it on this day only 4 of 12 campers had registered and paid. If you owned the showgrounds would you be happy with this?

Rant over please make sure you are one of the people that does pay.

To view the places we have visited click here to see them on Google maps. You can click the links to read the blog about that area.

To view the Ratings we have done for places we have stayed click here 

If you liked this post how about buying me a cup of coffee to keep future posts coming ☕