Sliding into a Quinney’s Bush summer

A new river slide is in place at Quinney’s Bush Camp and the BMX track has been redesigned for families to enjoy their summer holiday.

Andrew Quinney is the third generation of Quinneys to run the Motupiko site that began as a simple camping ground on the farm and has developed into a Kiwi adventure holiday park with a water slide, flying fox and go karts.

This year, the new slide is set up at the swimming hole in the river, the BMX track has new jumps and there are more cooking barbeque areas near the river and places to wash up after dinner.

“We’ve given the BMX track with a whole bunch of new jumps and redesigned it to make it more interesting. There used to be teenagers riding through the playground, so now they will go to the jumps on the BMX track and keep the playground safe,” Andrew says.

“The whole middle of the camp is one giant playground now.”

He says the camp has always been very family-focused, catering for young families, with plenty for the youngsters to do while parents relax.

“Parents don’t see kids until they’re hungry.”

Adding more cooking facilities and sinks at the back of the camp, near the river, will enable families to get food prepared and clean up afterwards, he says.

“For the last 20 years we had only the one kitchen, so now we’ve built two barbeque areas down towards the river. In previous years, there was a line to wash the dishes and now we have about 12 sinks near the river. It definitely helps families prepare meals and clean up.”

A laundry area has been added near the river as well, making it easier for families who have set up camp in that area.

The popular turtle pond has also had some work done for the 11 turtles that now call it home. Most are rescue turtles and the largest is nearly the size of a dinner plate.

“My oldest one is about 25 years old now – that’s Charlie that was a pet turtle I got when I was about 10. So, I’ve had her most of her life. I built the pond for Charlie, and I made the pond far bigger than I needed and so I got rescue turtles from Christchurch.

“Everyone buys them when they’re small and a couple of years later they’re the size of a dinner plate. The oldest one is about 12 inches long and they live up to about 40 years.

“I don’t think I’ll take on any more – it’s a lot of mouths to feed.”

Andrew says the campground has been booked up through the Christmas-New Year period, with many tents lit up with festive lights.

“Some campers have a whole light show.”

Tent sites are still available through the rest of the holidays and he recommends campers check availability.