Review: Auckland Outdoor Naturist Club in Auckland, New Zealand

Before we went to the Auckland Outdoor Naturist Club, AONC in short, we visited our first nude beach in New Zealand. This wasn’t a huge success. Ladies Bay was an okay beach, if it had been in another country we might have even called it “a nice beach”. But this is New Zealand… Come on, we’ve watched enough National Geographic Channel to know what this country is supposed to have to offer.

What worried us even more than the lack of a breathtaking landscape was the crowd on the beach. All male, all solo, and many past middle-aged. As cliché as it can be. We crossed our fingers and wished that this would not be the prelude of what we would find in the coming weeks at naturist resorts across the country. You can imagine our relief when AONC proved from the first moment that it would not.

Maybe we’re a bit biased here as AONC was our first resort in New Zealand and as the bar was set pretty low after visiting Ladies Bay, but our arrival almost felt like a fairytale. We were driving through this neighbourhood when Google Maps suddenly ordered us to turn left and just like that, we saw the big AONC sign in front of us. Literally in the middle of Auckland Suburbia.

Once you get through the gate, a green silence falls upon you and it seems like you’ve arrived at the campsite of the Association of landscape architects. This would not be unique to AONC though, we secretly believe that Kiwi kids get taught landscaping in Elementary school.

Anyway, you’re looking at a 20-minute drive from downtown Auckland or a half-hour drive from the airport. An Uber from either place will cost somewhat between $50 and $80 NZD. From downtown Auckland, it’s much more economical to take the train from Britomart to Ranui station which costs about $5 NZD.

The train makes it easy to get from the club to downtown and back, but if you like to see more of the area, having a rental car is recommended.

Like many naturist clubs around the world, AONC has its fair share of residents, as well as a number of campsites for visitors or members who only visit now and then. Then there are three rental cabins, of which we occupied the “Oranui”.

We can tell you, it looks a lot better than on the website. It’s a bit like a tiny home with a living room, a fully equipped kitchen, and two bedrooms (a single and a double). Shower facilities and toilets are shared, at about a one-minute walk. Truth to be said, we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t have our own toilet, but then we realised that we were not in Australia anymore and that New Zealand doesn’t really have animals that will kill you on your midnight walk to the loo. This made us feel a lot better.

AONC looks – as we would learn later – a lot like most naturist clubs that we would visit in New Zealand. With one important exception though, but we’ll get to that later. It starts with the clubhouse, a large indoor space with sitting areas and a TV that probably comes in handy on colder days or when the All Blacks are playing. The fully equipped kitchen can be an added value for campers.

Then there’s a large and a small pool, for large and small people, two spa pools and a sauna. There are a number of sports facilities and games and an outdoor communal area which seems to serve mostly as a barbecue area. At least when we were there. This is also where AONC differs from all other naturist clubs we visited in New Zealand: They have a bar/snack bar. It’s only open at certain hours during the weekend, but we’ve been told that it’s the cheapest bar in Auckland.

Definitely also worth a mention are the trails that take you on walks through suburban forests filled with fern trees. Even if you’re not a hiker, the walks are really beautiful and the only way to see how green the outskirts of Auckland are.

Well, downtown Auckland is literally just at your doorstep. At only a 20-minute drive or 40-minute train ride, we know very few naturist resorts that are this close to a major city and that can perfectly be used as a base for a city trip. Actually, we would find another such resort in New Zealand, but that’s for within a couple of weeks.

Then there are the nude beaches. We told you about Ladies Bay in the introduction, which didn’t impress us much. When we visited Pohutukawa Beach the day after, it was spot on. What an amazing beach! It takes a 30-minute hike to get there, but the scenery is definitely worth the effort. Another beach we would recommend in “Greater Auckland” is O’Neills Beach on the west coast. If you’re a teenager of the nineties, you might find it cool to know that Eddie Vedder, the singer of Pearl Jam, once almost drowned while surfing at these beaches. Another nude beach we enjoyed was Orpheus, also in the west.

Then there is, of course, everything out of the city. A two-hour drive north will take you to Northland, two hours east will get you to the Coromandel and two hours south is Hamilton. In New Zealand, there’s often a lot to see and do in relatively small spaces. So take your time.

As we mentioned in the introduction, the crowds at AONC couldn’t be more different from what we had seen at the beach. This too would be a trend throughout naturist clubs in New Zealand, but especially at AONC we found a really nice balance in gender, age, and background. Maybe it’s an advantage of being close to a big city, but we also got the feeling that the board actively tries to make AONC a great place for everyone.

Our first point of contact was Eddie, who we very much appreciated from the first minute for his no-nonsense tour of the club. From then it became kinda blurry whether people were considered staff, volunteers, or just helping a hand because that’s what they like to do. The typical club atmosphere at its best.

The best ways to book at Auckland Outdoor Naturist Club are:

Naturist resort or club-wise, we definitely got a good start. Now that we had AONC as our new benchmark for naturism in New Zealand, we were very much looking forward to visiting more clubs in the country.