Getting from Auckland to Cathedral Cove means a two-and-a-half-hour drive over 178 kilometres, the last third of which is a windy path through the Coromandel.

Inland Revenue sets a $1.04 per kilometre mileage rate for business travel – a figure meant to include wear and tear on your vehicle as well as running costs. Running costs will include the charges the government sets for using the roads, which help to recoup the cost of building and maintaining those roads.

It’s broadly understood that not charging road users for the cost of the roads results in too much road use and too little road maintenance. Road user charging makes sense.

The roundtrip is then already going to cost you well over $200, if you’re counting your vehicle costs properly – or if you’re renting one. Alternatively, a bus roundtrip from downtown Auckland to Hot Water Beach near Cathedral Cove is also over $200.

When you get there, if you haven’t packed a lunch, you’ll pay for the food you purchase. Free lunches are rare things, and with good reason.

Camping at the reserve itself is prohibited, but you can pay to stay at a Department of Conservation campground where fees are about $10 per night for adults. Or you can pay to stay at an AirBnB, a hotel, or a fancier campground. If campsites were free, they’d be heavily over-subscribed and under-serviced.

The shuttle from the village to the Cove is not free.

The only thing you won’t have to pay for is accessing the Cove itself – the whole point of your trip. Reviews at TripAdvisor note the place is beautiful but warn it can be too crowded to be enjoyable and that the toilet facilities are not up to standard.

If you are able to get there this summer at all. Land access has been blocked since landslides and rockfall in the summer of 2022/23; the Department of Conservation hopes to restore access in December.

Many of the country’s most stunning attractions are difficult and expensive to access. Because they don’t charge for access, they’re overrun and undermaintained.  

On Friday, the Department of Conservation released a consultation document that could help change things. The government seeks feedback on proposals to finally set access charges.

Prime Minister Helen Clark quickly tweeted, “Shocking to see suggestion that New Zealanders could be asked to pay to enter #conservation areas. And international visitors are already being asked to pay an increased visitor levy. It’s a core responsibility of the state to fund the conservation estate.”

But unless you live next door to a conservation area, accessing it is far from free. And while international visitors do pay a levy on landing, business travellers here for a weekend conference pay the same fee as someone hopping onto a tour bus that visits every congested site along a lengthy route. The charge is not linked to the visitor’s contribution to the burden on congested sites. So it cannot help manage demand.

The Department of Conservation’s consultation document puts up some international comparisons.

A three-day pass to see Uluru is $41; those who live in the Northern Territory can get an annual vehicle pass that covers everyone in the car for $119. Either charge is trivial compared to the cost of getting from anywhere to Uluru.

Seeing Banff in Canada is $13 per day per person, or $89 for an annual pass, or $26 for a vehicle’s entry (including all passengers). Getting to Banff requires a flight or other transport to Calgary, followed by an hour and a half drive. Or a much longer drive over the mountains from British Columbia. $26 for the vehicle’s entry really isn’t a large part of the cost.

And remember that annual passes can serve the same role as discounts for locals, sharply reducing the cost per visit – for those who visit often.

The Department of Conservation suggests that a $20 charge for New Zealanders and $30 for international visitors at five popular sites could raise about $70 million that could be used to improve amenities at the places people visit or across the broader region.

Taking the burden of providing tourist-facing facilities off of DoC and placing it onto those visitors would not make for a large increase in the overall cost of accessing the conservation estate. But it would enable DoC to focus scarce Crown funding on conservation projects rather than tourism projects.

The consultation document is better than most I have seen. It clearly lays out the issues and the options. While some worry about equity issues involved in charging for entry, DoC notes the equity issues involved in not charging: those who do not use public conservation land wind up benefitting at the expense of nonusers. Nonusers may not have been able to afford to get to the gate in the first place. And it is always possible to set a lower fee for those with a community services card.

Consultation closes in late February. As you take your summer tour, pay attention to the places where facilities could be improved, tracks could be better maintained, and congestion could be eased.

Charges that are small relative to the cost of your summer holidays could help make a big difference for quality access to the conservation estate.

To read the full article on the Newsroom website, click here.