LUXURY IN NEW ZEALAND
LODGES DESIGNED TO HELP HEAL BOTH BODY AND SOUL
New Zealand is the kind of place you go when you don’t want the world to follow. The country’s remote wilderness and pristine wellness retreats are so far removed from reality they seem to melt modern tension on contact: an alchemical reaction to inhaling the purest air on the planet.
This island nation, one of my final trips before COVID19 hit, is exceptionally beautiful with its wide open, underpopulated spaces, big skies and remote, high country luxury lodges, especially in the South Island.
The Luxury Lodges of New Zealand Association represents 30 of these extraordinary properties. Guests can stay on estates and ranches, vineyards, farms, lakes, even mountains only accessible by helicopter.
I visited four exclusive properties — and found while each was unique, they shared an uncommon beauty, isolation, and a taste of the famous Kiwi hospitality: manaakitanga in Maori, which when taken together will bring you back to centre.
ARO HA
Aro Ha is a next-level wellness retreat that promises “adventures in well-being,” yet is so unassuming you’re apt to drive right by it. Or, fall into it.
The building blends into the hills high above Lake Wakatipu, set amid a ring of peaks 40 minutes outside Queenstown on the South Island. As I wander the grounds on a tour, head in the clouds, mouth agape at the scenery, I’m so distracted I plunge foot first into a pool. Yes, the views are that incredible.
Aro Ha is designed as a group retreat for up to 18 guests, where all decisions are made for you. Yoga at daybreak with restorative tonics, hiking the mountains, daily deep tissue massage, sauna, spa and exercise classes, meditation and evening yoga.
The solar-powered facility, which opened in 2014, features a Japanese design and offers treats like bespoke teas and bauxite clay treatments.
“People who come here want to restart their wellness, fitness, peace of mind — just find time for themselves and find stillness again,” says Aro Ha manager Paula Ryan. “One of our guests told me: ‘I didn’t realize six days of my life would make me a kinder person.’”
And a healthier one. The plant-based menu is made from scratch by chef Jenny Lomas, who dreams up dishes like quince porridge, minted almond-cheese ravioli and edamame spaghetti noodles with vegan Bolognese.
Most produce, including apricots, hazelnuts and native figeoas, comes from the “food forest” on their land and assistant chef and nutritionist Nils Kloumberg sources nasturtiums, guava berries and marigolds from their greenhouse.
“At the end of the week the guests have this glow,” Ryan explains. “They really do leave looking different — their shoulders are down.”
MAHU WHENUA
When I first see Mahu Whenua, driving from Wanaka through sweeping valleys, the highland property is bathed in golden-hour light: sun sparkles off a bend in the Motatapu River far below, horses canter over hills.
This private home turned luxury lodge on 55,000 acres of highlands opened to the public in 2017. The owner’s aim was to turn the property — once home to four sheep stations and an old gold mine — into a rehabilitated national ecological trust.
Today, 90 per cent of the land is protected by covenants, ensuring its future as a conservation area. For now, it serves as your personal national park.
Mahu Whenua is Maori for “healing the land.” The team began reforesting in 2004 and today has planted 1.6 million trees, including Manuka and beech, red tussock grasses and flax.
Even the lodge is ecofriendly: solar powered and built with recycled wood and stones from the property. “The concept of Mahu Whenua is to return the land to its natural state,” says property agent Charlie Jones. “It’s the views that make you stop.”
The entire property — as far as you can see — is yours to explore.
Activities include horseback riding, heli-skiing, yoga, massage, hiking, feeding native birds, gold panning in the rivers, or taking a 4WD tour of the vast property with grounds manager Huntly McGregor, who oversees the native bird breeding initiative.
His office is enviable: blue skies, wispy white clouds, snow capped peaks, hawks swooping overhead — spacious, natural, beautiful — an environment so clean I want to drink it up. And so I do, cupping hands in a creek for a mouth of cold mountain water that quenches my soul.
“No words,” reads one guest book entry. “Too much beauty.”
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.”