I wholeheartedly agree that Tauranga's ATC is very helpful and patient. I don't want to put people off flying there, the word "busy" is very subjective, and I tend to find Tauranga CTR is busier than Hamiltons with all the different ops going on (hang gliding, parasailing, gyrocopters, gliding etc...) in addition to training and commercial ops.
I have not flown into Ardmore for a couple of years now, so I cannot comment on how busy it is currently. When I was flying there semi-regularly it wasn't too busy for my comfort level so I don't remember being scared, or maybe I just blocked out those memories...
Raglan can be challenging, but who wants to only land on 2000m+ runways? Where's the fun in that?
