[migratory birds]

It's summer here...and it used to be easy to pack up for a last minute camping getaway decades ago, arrive and find a spot to pitch the tent. Now must often plan/reserve site months in advance - no leaving on Thurs with hopes of finding a campsite near water anymore.

How about in NZ? I imagine school holiday periods are most difficult...but these would likely be the times we, too, would be looking at getaways (unless we homeschool which would definitely be a perk to be able to have a wider selection of getaway destinations).

[srivett]

We had no trouble at all finding camping spots on both islands last minute in time to stop for the night. The really secluded ones had 3 or 4 other tents up at most - the holiday parks had more, but even then they always had room. Weekends didn't seem to make a difference. It helped that we had a map with DoC sites marked on it, and they were usually easy enough to find. There was one on the west coast of the South Island by a lake where we saw the most spectacular sunset! I can't speak from the experience of living there yet, but I don't imagine you'll have trouble.

The DoC website answers a lot of questions and has maps of all campsites. It also lists nightly fees and what facilities you can expect in each type of location.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/page.aspx?id=38355

If our time travelling around was any indication, you have a lifetime of amazing camping trips ahead of you.

[Oregonkiwi]

It depends where you are. If you're camping near Auckland in the summer you'd probably want to book in advance, but you can do it days rather than months ahead (except for the peak Christmas/New Year period). We didn't end up camping this past summer as much as we thought we would, but we did camp at Tawharanui in early December (before the school holidays started) and the campground was pretty full, so I imagine it would be booked out at peak times. (Actually you have to book in advance for ARC campsites.)
http://www.arc.govt.nz/arc/auckland-regional-parks/camping/camping_home.cfm
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9106

[swissmissdesigner]

I never booked a campsite. Although I try to arriving early, so they had some sites available. It’s always worked out, or I just was lucky.
As Oregnokiwi said, probably depending from the season. Sometimes I when I checked out in one campsite they helped me to book to the next place.