‘FORGET ABOUT THE WORLD’
HAPUKU LODGE AND TREE HOUSES
Guests at Hapuku in the marine wonderland of Kaikoura can get away from it all — and above it — with a stay in your own treehouse, nine metres above ground in a canopy of kanuka trees.
The tricked-out treehouses have views right out to sea, huge soaker tubs, wood fireplaces, plate-glass rain showers, and fine linens. “Our intent is to help you forget about the world for a little bit,” says general manager Chris Sturgeon.
The beauty of the deep is what draws most travellers to Kaikoura for adventures off the coast of this former fishing town.
Swimming with dusky dolphins, kayaking with fur seals, boating next to breaching humpback, sperm and orca whales, watching albatross skim waves and blue penguins hop rocks are highlights.
“That is what luxury is in New Zealand, it’s experiences,” Sturgeon says.
A gourmet experience is also on offer: Hapuku turns out fantastic food in a warm, inviting dining room, where guests chat and trade wine tips between tables.
Executive chef Fiona Read puts sustainability on her menu. The lodge presses fresh olive oil from its own grove, uses honey from bees they keep on the property and serves the catch of the day plucked from the sea just 10 minutes away.
Chef Fernando Campos Da Silva plays beautifully with this bounty, sending out homemade bread with lodge olive oil, brill with zucchini and potatoes, roast duck, and a gourmet cheese plate with award-winning Kaikoura cheeses and honeycomb paired with a 2017 Mt. Beautiful Pinot Noir that tastes like black cherries.
It’s the kind of meal you linger over, swapping stories and sharing memories by the fire until the late hours.
TREETOPS LODGE AND ESTATE
For a final room with a view, I head to Treetops Lodge and Estate where I’m greeted at the gate by a resident peacock.
It’s the first of many animal encounters on the thousand-hectare forested estate outside Rotorua on the North Island.
It’s home to an astonishing array of wildlife: 400 deer, alpacas, Asian water buffalo, wild turkeys, horses, sheep, wild boar, pheasants, ducks, even the odd Canada goose.
The lush property, with a lodge that sleeps 36, boasts four lakes stocked with trout, a sandy beach, 400 beehives, gardens, a waterfall and 70 kilometres of trails through a 800-year-old forest to explore.
“New Zealand is all about conservation,” says guest-services manager Louis Shoeman.
“We realize what we’ve got and we want to preserve it. The point is to come and switch off, to listen to yourself again and hear your inner voice.”
Unwind on a game drive with estate manager Dave Goodman, who somehow ensures majestic red stags leap from the bush at every turn.
“It feels like a dinosaur is going to come around the corner, it’s got that look about it,” Goodman jokes. He has a point: the scale of the scenery in New Zealand has a hint of prehistoric about it.
Guests can book horseback riding tours, hikes, traditional spa treatments, hunt or fish for trout, visit Rotorua’s geothermal attractions, take cooking classes from their Wild Food Cooking School program and learn about indigenous plants on a guided Maori Food Trail hike with Maori naturalist Dani Hunwick.
Later, enjoy cocktails fireside in the vaulted great room then tuck into a tasting menu from chef Felipe Ponce, who grew up on Easter Island, met his Rotoruan wife in the Cook Islands and moved here to continue to explore Polynesian cuisine. He sources game meats and produce from the estate — expect to try venison, buffalo and game meat charcuterie — adding indigenous ingredients like horopito pepper, pico pico ferns and kawakawa herbs from its forest.
“Our philosophy is estate to plate,” Ponce says. “We have so much here, it’s the best of the best.”