Kauri Cliffs – the ultimate hideaway, even for non-golfers

Sitting in a hot tub watching the winter sun rise over the Pacific Ocean while reds and golds reflected in the adjoining infinity pool is a recipe for calm that lasts for at least a few days. Well, hours anyway. 

Steam rises, birds burst out of the bush and flit in raucous cacophonies overhead. You can see past Kauri Cliffs’ main building, out across the golf course, over the cliffs to a silvery sea where one single fishing boat streaks. There is no one else around. 

Even running back to bed through the freezing native forest is exhilarating.

My wife and I stayed at Kauri Cliffs, famed for its outstanding golf course, without picking up a single club.

We packed our two days with everything else.

Driving five hours from Auckland, we finally reach the turnoff onto a gravel road near Matauri Bay, past a herd of cream Charolais cows, through the security gates and down a long driveway to staff waiting to greet us.

We’re served drinks and canapes in a high-ceilinged room with an open fire with windows overlooking that golf course and the ocean. 

Later, we move to the Tiger Room for a private dinner, where we’re served a degustation that includes a mini corn fritter and a seaweed cracker that looks like sea foam in a box of grain. 

Chef Paul Froggatt certainly deserved to win the Luxury Lodge Chef of the Year title at August’s Cuisine Good Food Awards. 

Each course is presented with a flourish, an experience for the eyes as well as the nose and tongue.

Interestingly, the Tiger Room’s decor includes a tiger rug that originally lay in the New York office of the late visionary Kauri Cliffs founder Julian Robertson, KNZM, where he made the fortune that enabled him and his wife, Josephine, to build their famous luxury lodges in New Zealand.

From our spot on that rug, we can see the infinity pool and hot tub and are told about the outstanding sunrise soak experience as a must-do. 

That is definitely a highlight.

But so is being picked up by an SUV and driven down a long hill to a private beach. We pick up shells and wander along the pink sand. Deb, our host, tells us how she comes down ahead of couples and gathers shells to form into the shape of a heart on the picnic table. Of course, a delicious picnic or BBQ is also provided. 

I suspect there have been more than a few proposals here. And more than a few weddings under a driftwood arch built nearby. 

The beach is set up with outdoor catering facilities for a Kauri Cliffs chef to provide the kind of outdoor dining experience that comes with white napkins, silverware and crystal glasses.

Another time, we’re delivered up to the top of the drive and guided through the bush to visit a vast kauri tree that could be 900 years old. 

Deb gives us the option of making our own way back to the lodge through the bush and down through the golf course. It’s a gentle, downhill walk that takes us an hour or maybe two. Time doesn’t seem to matter here.

We stroll through the native trees, across a stream and up a hill to pop out on a ridge with a stunning view back down to the lodge. We wander back, stopping to chat with golfers, pausing near the cliff’s edge to listen to the waves below and look out to the Cavalli Islands. 

We’re given the keys to an electric golf cart and drive over the estate across sturdy wooden bridges on sealed lanes and pathways. We spot a couple of golfers partway down the cliff, clinging to trees, still trying to keep their ball in play. There are discreet toilets sheltered by trees, so bathroom breaks are always convenient. 

The course is impeccably manicured. In fact, the machines are out at dawn, shaving down a few millimetres on the greens, ready for the day’s influx.

But we have a more leisurely lie-in in our private chalet with a balcony, surrounded by native bush. The bathroom is almost as big as the bedroom, with a huge bathtub that begs for your time.

Breakfast is back at the lodge in the restaurant. It’s a quick walk up through the bush on another sealed pathway, past the wood pigeon that reliably spends every morning in the same spot performing his own ablutions.

Those wishing for more privacy or who bring families can hire one of the multi-bedroom, double-kitchen “cottages”, which come with their own pool and nanny’s room. A side entrance for staff means they can discreetly whip in to cook in a separate, utilitarian kitchen and deal with laundry, or guests can use the beautiful cottage kitchen themselves.

Despite the time we devoted to roaming, we explored only a tiny portion of the estate’s 6,000 hectares. Despite, too, the time we devoted to outstanding breakfasts, lunches and dinners, we ate only a fraction of the chef’s repertoire. And we managed only that one dawn dip. 

It seemed cruel to drive away, back to the real world.

● All images: BusinessDesk.
● Matt Martel and his wife stayed at Kauri Cliffs as guests of Robertson Lodges.