Camp Paekakariki (Paekakariki)

Camp Paekakariki was the largest camp and housed 5,200 men from the 8th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division. It covered a significant area of Paekakariki Village, east of Wellington road between Queen Elizabeth Park and Tarawa Street. Prior to the Marines 'occupation the land was the site of the Paekakariki Golf Links.

The camp included 782 tent decks and several hundred other buildings including: a bulk store, administration blocks, shower blocks and drying rooms, officers, sergeants and men's mess buildings, canteens and cooking shelters, a dry ration and vege store, a meat and milk store and an ammunition store.

The camp also included two hospitals, one north of Te Miti Street, and the other between Haumia and Horomoana Streets.

Some of the original tent floors from the camp are still in evidence at the Paekakariki Holiday Park and are used as sites for caravans even today.

The Park also has remnants of foundationsOriginal Tent Floors that can be seen in the walls and surroundings of its vegetable and flower gardens. Other remnants include: pieces of asphalt road, the Smith's Creek water intake, a concrete pad from the former transport service centre on State Highway 1, the "Rail Air Shed" on State Highway 1, (originally a food storage depot for the camps), and a large brick fuel tank on Middlerun farm capable of holding 1 million litres of fuel.

Remnants of the camp remain today in the gardens of the residents