Campground · Mount Aspiring National Park
A lakeside camp with mountain views and a short beech-forest loop.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Mount Aspiring Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Mount Aspiring National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Mount Aspiring audio tour“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Kidds Bush Reserve Campsite is a 40-site, non-powered campground in a grassy clearing under mountain beech, right beside Lake Hāwea. It sits in Hāwea Conservation Park, outside Mount Aspiring National Park, but is one of the camping stops on the Haast Highway route. The lake and mountain setting is the main reason to stay.
The 1 km Kidds Bush Nature Walk starts at the reserve and loops through mountain beech forest in about 30 minutes. The Sawyer Burn Track also starts here if you want to keep walking.
From SH6, turn at The Neck onto Meads Road; the last 6 km to camp is gravel, narrow and steep in places. Large campervans aren't suitable. Book ahead for peak summer, when the campground often fills between Boxing Day and early February.
There's no tap water in winter, and the water supply isn't confirmed as potable, so bring drinking water you can rely on. Dogs aren't allowed and fires are prohibited year-round. Sandflies can be thick in warmer months.
Wildlife
60 sightingsKeaMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
112 sightingsRockwrenMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
26 sightingsYellowheadMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
13 sightingsTūīMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
27 sightingsBellbirdMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
35 sightingsRiflemanMost seen around 8 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Mount Aspiring. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Parkwolf’s Mount Aspiring ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
