After car trouble in Northland we were intending on returning via Aotea, again another area of NZ we had never explored. When we explain our predicament to the owners/managers they were kind enough to push our accommodation out to the next night and we rocked in at 1:30am, to yet another Bookabach find. The place was lite up for us and the key in the door, clearly this is a trusting part of NZ.
Having driven in, in the pitch black we weren’t able to really see much so after a good night’s sleep we woke up to this very lovely sea side village. This was the seaside town we all remember from our childhoods. Families all just hanging out in the sun, dogs and kids doing what dogs and kids do. Dads in the obligatory summer uniform of singlets, shorts and jandels and of course keeping hydrated while in various stages of preparing to fish. Mums fussing over reluctant children, sunscreen in one hand, wine in the other.
The bach was more of a motel unit, three in total but they were simple, clean and functional, again it wasn’t fenced for dogs, but that didn’t matter as we found out that dogs had the lay of the land (if their owners let them). We had our friend’s small puppy of 12 months Billy as well as our own small dog who is six. Billy headed off in search of some more friends and he found several including a few big dogs, it was a doggy paradise.
Apart from being a doggy paradise, it’s also one of the friendliest place I have been with everybody waving out to you. We gathered the dogs from their various new friends houses and jumped in the car and headed to the nearest shop at Kawhia. I got the feeling in Kawhia that they weren’t so dog friendly with signs up saying no dogs allowed on the beach and the park.
We put the dogs on a short lead and headed off for a walk around the shops. We brought supplies at the local Four Square and headed across the road to the cafe for lunch. It was reasonably priced and not too bad for lunch and while I didn’t have an icecream I saw them coming out of the shop and they were the biggest ones we have ever seen. We went next door to the art gallery and brought and original piece by a local artist at a good price and the over the road again I brought a lovely flax flower made by the owner who had won at WOW.
Back to the bach and we meet the owners who were lovely and down to earth, they said stay as long as we wanted that day as we were due to check out but we opted to stay another night so we could relax even more. Off to the beach which there was access from where we were staying. The wind was up but that didn’t stop us from going for a dip as they day was still very warm.
For dinner we had takeaways from Kawhia which were very good, then a relaxing night in before our 7 hour drive the next day. I would definitely recommend Sunset Retreat, it’s not big but it’s clean and a good base.
❉ Roddy & Sarah