Start your trip in the Coromandel
Quirky Campers connects you with privately owned, handcrafted campervans based on the Coromandel Peninsula. Every hire includes comprehensive insurance, 24/7 AA roadside assistance, unlimited kilometres and a personal handover from the van owner.
✓ Real vans, real character
No depot and no anonymous fleet vehicle. Choose a one-of-a-kind Coromandel-based campervan designed and cared for by its owner.
✓ Peninsula collection
Pick up directly from the owner’s home or nearby town. Your exact address and handover details are confirmed before travel.
✓ Fly, sail or ride from Auckland
You don’t need a car. Barrier Air flies Auckland to Whitianga, the ferry crosses the Hauraki Gulf, and InterCity runs by road. Make pick-up an experience of its own.
Happy campers hiring in the Coromandel
Independent Google reviews from people who have travelled with Quirky Campers NZ.
WHY START IN THE COROMANDEL?
Hot springs, kauri forest and a coastline of surprise.
The Coromandel packs an extraordinary amount into a single narrow peninsula.
The west looks across the Hauraki Gulf to Auckland, all mangroves, mudflats and pōhutukawa trees leaning over the road. The east faces the open Pacific with white sand, offshore islands and the kind of water that makes you pullover for an impromptu dip.
The towns you’ll travel between:
- Thames, an old gold mining town at the gateway
- Coromandel Town, on the western shore
- Whitianga and Kūaotunu, on Mercury Bay
- Hahei and Hot Water Beach
- Tairua, Pāuanui and Whangamatā
- Waihī, at the southern end
Collect from your campervan owner, get familiar with how everything works and then hit the winding roads of the Coromandel. There is no better place to start of finish a trip.
DISTINCTIVE COROMANDEL DAYS
48 hours in the Coromandel: A simple plan
After your personal handover, stock up in town, then pick the Coromandel experience that suits the weather, the tide and your energy.
01
Dig your own hot pool
Hot Water Beach is exactly what it sounds like. For about two hours either side of low tide you can source a spade, dig into the sand and sit in your very own hot tub, which comes up at temperatures of as much as 60°C. Check the tide before you drive over to make sure you time it right.
02
Walk to Cathedral Cove
Mautohe Cathedral Cove is an impressive limestone rock archway, which sits two kilometres from Hahei, reached on foot through coastal bush before the track drops to the arch itself. Parking at the top is tight and a park-and-ride shuttle runs in the busy months.
03
Soak & recover
The Lost Spring in Whitianga pipes water from 667 metres underground into pools set in native bush. Spend a day relaxing and pampering yourself here to recover from the journey. Over on the west coast, Coromandel Town has the Driving Creek Railway, a narrow-gauge line a local potter built by hand to haul clay, which now climbs to a wooden tower with views across the gulf.
THINGS YOUR GUIDEBOOK MAY NEGLECT
A little Coromandel background
For somewhere so small, the Coromandel has turned up in an impressive number of stories.
Where Aotearoa got its name
Whitianga is short for Te Whitianga o Kupe, Kupe’s Crossing. Tradition holds that when Kupe’s waka Matahourua approached this coast, it was Mt Moehau at the tip of the peninsula that his wife Hine Te Aparangi sighted, prompting the name Aotearoa. You can see Moehau from the western shore on a clear day.
The peninsula’s Māori name, Te Tara o te Ika a Māui, describes it as the jagged barb on the fish Māui hauled from the sea. Its English name is more prosaic: HMS Coromandel called in during 1820 to load kauri spars, and the name stuck to the whole peninsula.
An afternoon that measured the solar system
On 9 November 1769, the astronomer Charles Green came ashore here with Cook’s expedition and watched the planet Mercury pass across the face of the sun. The observation helped refine the scale of the solar system and the calculation of longitude, and Cook named the whole bay Mercury Bay for it. Two and a half centuries on, you can camp on the same shoreline.
The water offshore has its own protection. Te Whanganui-A-Hei became a marine reserve in 1992, which is why the snorkelling around Hahei is as good as it is.
Gold, kauri and a potter’s railway
Thames was a boom town. The goldfield was proclaimed on 1 August 1867, William Hunt struck gold in the Kuranui Stream nine days later, and by 1870 something like 15,000 people were living there, making it one of the largest settlements in the country. The Brian Boru Hotel has stood on the corner since 1868. By 1881 the population had fallen below 5,000.
The ranges were stripped of kauri in the same decades, floated out on dams whose remains you still walk past on the Pinnacles track. A century later the potter Barry Brickell started laying a 15-inch railway up his hillside at Driving Creek to fetch his own clay. It took him decades, and it is still running today.
TRAVEL DIFFERENTLY
Easy first nights in the Coromandel
You collect on the east coast, near Whitianga, so your first night is best spent close by rather than chasing distance.
Tasman Holiday Parks at Hahei Beach sits a few steps back from the sand, within walking distance of the Cathedral Cove track and a short drive from Hot Water Beach. For a first night it is hard to beat, and it books out early over summer.
Closer to the handover, the bays around Kūaotunu and Ōtama are quiet, unhurried and a long way from anything resembling a crowd.
DOC campsites are scattered the length of the peninsula and tend to be simple, cheap and beautifully placed. The ones along the northern coast beyond Colville are particularly good, although check the road surface first.
Prefer to freedom camp? You can, in a certified self-contained campervan, at the district’s designated spots. They are small and strictly controlled, so read the section below before you plan around one.
Getting to the Coromandel from Auckland, and back again
Most travellers land in Auckland after a long flight. From there, you have a few ways across to the Coromandel, and the same options work in reverse at the end of your trip.
By air
Barrier Air flies between Auckland and Whitianga, with scheduled services most days. It is far and away the quickest option and the flight across the Hauraki Gulf is a trip in itself.
Whitianga’s aerodrome is small and close to town, so the transfer at this end is short.
By sea
A passenger ferry crosses the Hauraki Gulf from Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour to Hannaford’s Wharf in about two hours, with a bus connection on into Coromandel Town. It is a lovely way to arrive, and it runs seasonally rather than year-round.
Check current timetables before you build a trip around it.
By road
InterCity coaches leave Auckland on Hobson Street and reach Coromandel Town in around four hours, transferring at Thames, with onward connections to Whitianga.
Driving yourself, allow roughly three hours from central Auckland to Whitianga. The road out of Thames hugs the coast and is narrow and winding in places, so it rewards a gentle pace.
Good to know before you go
One-way hire options out of the Coromandel
Because every Quirky van is privately owned, one-way hires need to cover the cost of getting the van home. We also need to check in with our owners to make sure they can accommodate collecting the vehicle.
The Coromandel sits close enough to Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua and Tauranga that one-way options are often workable. Get in touch and we’ll quote your route before you book.
For longer trips, a North Island loop that begins and ends on the peninsula avoids a relocation fee altogether, and the drive back up the Thames coast is no hardship.
Please talk to us first if you are interested in a one-way option.
Roads to plan around
Our campervans are for sealed roads, and the Coromandel has some famous exceptions. The 309 Road between Coromandel Town and Whitianga is 22km of gravel, so take the sealed SH25 instead. The road north beyond Colville towards Port Jackson and Fletcher Bay is also unsealed, as are stretches of the Kenepuru-style back roads around the Kauaeranga Valley beyond the visitor centre. Anything north of Colville is forbidden is a Quirky Camper due to the rough, unsealed roads.
Freedom camping on the Coromandel
NZ’s freedom camping rules can be complex. They vary by region, change frequently, and rangers do enforce them. The Coromandel is one of the tighter districts in the country, so please be kind to your pocket and read up before you park up ;).
Under the Thames-Coromandel Freedom Camping Bylaw, you must be in a certified self-contained vehicle, you may stay a maximum of two consecutive nights, and you can only occupy a site between 5pm and 9am. The van has to be gone early in the morning.
The designated spots are small. Several take only four vehicles, and the Woollams Avenue car park in Coromandel Town allows a single night. Getting there early, or having a holiday park or DOC campsite in reserve is often a good idea.
For more details, see Thames-Coromandel District Council’s freedom camping rules and schedules. We also recommend the Rankers or CamperMate apps, which are great for planning ahead. Or check our Freedom Camping guide and our campervan hire Coromandel FAQs.
CAMPERVAN HIRE COROMANDEL FAQS
Coromandel campervan hire FAQs
Where do I collect my campervan in the Coromandel?
At the campervan owner’s home, or at a agreed location like the nearest town. The listing shows the approximate location before booking, and the exact address is confirmed before your trip. There will be plenty of time to chat with your owner to make a plan for collection that everyone is happy with.
How do I get to the Coromandel from Auckland without a car?
Three ways. Barrier Air flies Auckland to Whitianga and is by far the fastest. A passenger ferry crosses the Hauraki Gulf from Viaduct Harbour to Hannaford’s Wharf in about two hours, with a bus connection into Coromandel Town, though it runs seasonally so check current sailings. InterCity coaches run from the SkyCity terminal via Thames in around four hours, with onward connections to Whitianga. Tell us how you’re arriving and we’ll help line up the handover.
What is included with Coromandel campervan hire?
Every booking includes comprehensive insurance, 24/7 AA roadside assistance and unlimited kilometres. Each camper also comes with all the cookware you need, plus bedding and towels at no additional cost.
Can I stay off grid in a campervan from the Coromandel?
Yes, Quirky Campers NZ vans are set up for off-grid travel, with solar panels, leisure batteries and inverters that keep your lights, fridge, water pump, phones and laptops running without needing a powered campsite. The exact off-grid duration depends on the specific van’s setup (battery capacity, solar size, fridge load, and the time of year), and is detailed on each individual van profile.
Is Cathedral Cove open?
Walking access reopened in December 2024 after the storms of 2022 and 2023, and the track to the cove is open. The cliffs are naturally unstable, though, and DOC closes the track and stops the shuttles at short notice when a severe weather warning is issued for Hahei. Check DOC’s Cathedral Cove updates page on the morning you plan to go.
When can I dig a pool at Hot Water Beach?
For roughly two hours either side of low tide, which shifts by about an hour each day, so check a tide chart before you commit to the drive. The springs sit between the tide lines and can reach 60°C, so test before you sit down. This is an exposed surf beach with strong rips, so treat the swimming and the digging as two separate activities.
What happens if my flight or ferry is delayed and I’m late for my pick-up?
We understand travel doesn’t always go to plan, and small aircraft and ferries are both weather dependent. If you’re running late, please contact your van owner directly as soon as possible (their phone number will be on your booking confirmation). Quirky NZ owners are generally flexible and will do their best to accommodate a later collection, including evening pick-ups where reasonable. If a same-day handover isn’t possible, we’ll work with you and the owner to arrange collection the following morning. Get in touch if you’d like to discuss specific arrangements.
Plan with confidence
Useful reading before you collect your campervan in the Coromandel.
Driving a campervan in New Zealand: what it’s really like
by James O’Hern
Driving a campervan in New Zealand is easier than most first-time visitors expect, and it’s one of the best ways to experience the country.
Is it safe to hire a campervan in New Zealand? How Quirky Campers NZ protects you on the road
by James O’Hern
Every campervan in the Quirky Campers NZ fleet meets the same safety and compliance standards as the largest commercial campervan operators in New Zealand.
Campervan insurance with Quirky Campers NZ: explained
by James O’Hern
Every Quirky Campers NZ booking includes fully comprehensive insurance with Vero and 24/7 AA roadside assistance as standard. We offer three protection plans (Ready
Choose your Coromandel-based soul mate of a camper
Every one of our Coromandel campervans comes decked out with its own unique personality. So check availability, find your perfect match and book your ideal travel companion today!
