A Kiwi's perspective on Wagga:
Thought we might have had a few more Kiwi's come over for it, as I didn't think it was that inaccessible. Then again, being school holidays and Easter may have made getting international flights, bringing the kids, and getting camping equipment a lot harder to organise. As Kiwi's, using a cabin was almost essential for us - it saved us having to cart heaps of camping gear on the plane. So, I think any location in future, that wants to make itself accessible needs to have adequate non-camping accommodation/bunkrooms etc, and probably not be more than a couple of hours from an international airport (ideally). Try-hards like us would do one in the middle of nowhere of course
On a Kiwi Mega:
Great to see the votes and interest being shown in NZ already. We are watching and listening
Naturally, whilst driving between caches during our road trip, the idea of a Mega in NZ came up for discussion numerous times. Our general thought was that Christchurch would probably be the best location to hold the first one. International airport, gateway to the South Island (I assume you want to see the real mountains
). We've got good showgrounds here that have been used for international Scout's and Guides Jamborees, so we know it can handle the numbers. And naturally a reasonable sized city (450k) and facilities with enough caches to keep you busy, but that is not as geographically bound as Auckland or Wellington. Christchurch is also a great start/finish point for a loop around the South Island. If you're coming this far, I assume you'd want to go sightseeing and make a trip of it. And maybe make a record attempt
Note - we have done absolutely no planning, and nothing has started at this point. I don't think we'd be able to alternate annually with Australia. Too much work. But I could certainly see us fitting into an Australasian Mega cycle. I do think that we may do a feasibility study in the next few months to look at the options though. Not sure if we yet have enough cachers in NZ to support the numbers internally, so we would probably be dependent on Aussie cachers to make up some of the numbers - and would definitely consider dates/time of year that would suit.