Erna Spijkerbosch - Honouring Erna, one step ahead of the game
She’s led a significant sector of New Zealand’s tourism industry, green tourism initiatives, and helped lead one of the country’s fastest growing districts, all without even passing School Certificate.
That was never a problem. If Erna Spijkerbosch didn’t know how to do something she found someone to teach her and learned.
Now after 35 years running Queenstown Holiday Park Creeksyde, Erna’s one of Queenstown’s entrepreneurial tourism legends, along with her DIY husband of 52 years, Tonnie Spijkerbosch. Creeksyde, which opened in 1988, was believed to be the first dedicated campervan park in the country.
Born with her chicken farmer father’s entrepreneurial spirit in 1948, Erna spent most of her childhood near Oamaru.
A shy teenager, she “absconded” from Waitaki Girls’ High. “I didn’t get aggressive until I got to Queenstown,” she grins.
She had various stints as a nurse aid in Otago, before leaving her 95cents an hour job to earn $1.05 packing biscuits at Dunedin’s Cadburys Factory.
“I saved and bought a two-door, sporty Triumph Herald.”
On a rainy Dunedin night at a Town Hall dance Erna met fresh Dutch immigrant Tonnie. “My friend said, ‘What’s he like, and I said, ‘Damned if I know. I can’t understand a word he’s saying’.”
After marrying in 1970 they moved to Queenstown where Tonnie’s plumbing skills were in demand with Hec Boyd’s Queenstown Plumbing.
Erna worked at Mountain View Motels, housekeeping, and as cook for Otago Bitumen, turning out a leg of lamb or roast pork lunch on her Henry Street coal range for 10 workers. Rent was $8 a week and they took in a tenant to help.
After 11 months in Holland, they returned to launch Spikes Plumbing in Queenstown.
“I used to drive down the Mall, double park, go into the Four Square and get the groceries, talk to Hannah Green, come out, and there was still nobody waiting to get past me,” says Erna.
She taught herself bookkeeping, managing Tony’s accounts by attending night classes on computer systems. “My parents gave us $10,000 to buy our first computer – a NCR Decision Mate with Twin Floppy Disc.”
Erna took on her first battle with Plumbing Wholesale suppliers, fighting furiously to get freight free goods to Queenstown, scoring Tonnie a wholesale licence.
As their three kids grew, Erna took an interest in local politics, sitting in the public gallery at Queenstown Borough Council meetings, alongside legendary environmental advocate Margaret Templeton. After meetings, when “their flagons of gin and whiskey” came out, she’d tell the councillors what they were doing wrong.
Erna served on Wakatipu High School’s Board of Trustees and was a founding member of the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce, before taking on local politics herself. She was a Queenstown Lakes District councillor for six years from 1995, through Queenstown’s devastating record 1999 floods.
She and Tonnie sold their plumbing business in 1989 and bought land in Robins Road where they opened Creeksyde in 1988 with just 36 campervan sites. Gradually, Tonnie bought neighbouring properties, incorporating land into the holiday park, creating a green oasis. Today the park has 80 sites and 18 units.
“We’d drop ‘10 percent off’ brochures onto campervan windscreens downtown and offer the leftover cream buns from Queenstown Bakery to our guests in the kitchen each night,” says Erna. “We’d give them a leaflet to give away out of town, offering the same to any other campervans they met.”
Always ahead of the game, Erna launched national co-operative marketing body, Kiwi Camps, serving as national secretary.
Elected to the Holiday Accommodation Parks of NZ Board, she served 13 years, including as vice and national president.
An innovator, Erna noticed how the Europeans handled rubbish and recycling. She discovered Green Globe 21 sustainability certification, did the hard yards and before long was guest speaker at the first Green Globe Conference in Kaikoura, travelling to Jamaica to speak too. By Creeksyde’s 30th birthday it had earned ‘Masters’ status.
It’s had its challenges. A Japanese guest once unwittingly emptied his Portaloo using the centralised vacuum system. “We fed paper towels on a string through the suction line until the pipes were cleaned out.” Then an American tourist threatened to sue them when staff rushed to put out a fire he’d innocently lit in an old coal range converted to gas, in a park barbecue area. “We’d used a coal range for aesthetics, but he’d bought a bag of kindling and started a fire to cook his dinner,” smiles Erna. “He’d looked up on his phone how to cook in a coal range.”
Staff accommodation is still the biggest problem they’ve ever faced. “We now own flats around Boydtown.”
Winner of a Tourism Award in 1989, an AA Spirit of Hospitality Award in 2003, and numerous other hospitality, holiday park and tourism awards, Erna’s represented NZ around the world. A NZ Holiday Park Association life member, she’s been honoured for her outstanding contribution to the industry.
