A beachfront site with a bubble machine: the Canterbury family summering in style

Friday, 27 December 2019

Brent Logan first holidayed at Kaiteriteri Recreation Reserve Camp as a toddler in 1963. Now he returns each summer with his wife Faye, and sons Xander and Quinn.

After 56 years, the Logans know a thing or two about camping in style.

Over more than five decades of summers at Kaiteriteri Recreation Reserve Camp, the Christchurch family has upgraded from a one-room tent to two sites packed with modern conveniences. They have Netflix and Sky for entertainment, and their motorhome has airconditioning, set to icy-cold on hot days.

And there's also Alexa, the voice-activated virtual assistant, which controls lights, music, and other essentials.

'Alexa, turn on the bubble machine,' instructs Quinn Logan.

'Alexa, turn on the bubble machine.' The Logans' front-row site has all the comforts of home - and then some.

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Kaiteriteri Beach has changed a lot since the Logan family started holidaying there decades ago.

But most of the family traditions, honed over decades, embrace good old fashioned fun. The extended Logan family – numbering as many as 40 some seasons – enjoy a potluck Christmas dinner, poker nights, kayak trips, walks and Uno championships.

Each year, a much-anticipated cinema trip to see the summer blockbuster sees the family fill the back row of State Cinemas Motueka.

Brent Logan, front, Xander Logan, Faye Logan and Quinn Logan at their Row A camp site at the Kaiteriteri camp ground.

Brent Logan's first visit was in 1963 as a toddler, but extended family members have been holidaying at the park since 1934 when it first opened, he said.

The site has changed a lot. Brent and his wife Faye remember a tree-lined beachfront, drive-in movies and beauty pageants.

Thirty years ago the Logans secured two permanent sites at the front of the campsite. It's known as 'Death Row' – 'because someone has to die for you to get a pitch there'. The sites overlook Kaiteriteri's golden sands and sparkling blue sea.

Holiday makers jump off the Kaiteriteri Bridge on New Year's Day in 2017.

Row A at the Kaiteriteri campground in the 1970s.

The trees that lined the front have been replaced by a road filled with cruising cars and tanned holidaymakers, but the family doesn't mind the summer bustle.

The family has missed only one summer, when Faye was heavily pregnant with her first child. But after that, they just packed up the children along with the camping chairs and Christmas decorations.

'[It] didn't matter how young they were, they were brought camping,' Brent says.

The family has no plans to summer elsewhere.

'We love the weather, we love the traditions, it's good to catch up with the family.'

Brent's father, who died in November, is missed at this year's gathering. But his memory lives on, not only by the family, but on the internet, too.

'When you go to Google street view, you can see my father looking through the window of his caravan.'