Te Arai Links

After a relaxing afternoon flight from Melbourne to Auckland, I am picked up at the airport in a black BMW 7-Series and whisked into the city for my single night stay at the Hotel Britomart. For those with design and architecture sensibilities, The Britomart is the place to stay in Auckland. As the beating heart of the masterplan that renowned Kiwi firm Cheshire Architects created in Auckland’s waterside precinct, Hotel Britomart is one of those rare experiences that combine warmth and comfort with an edgy cool. The pale, fine brickwork on the building’s exterior is a hint at the sensory overload of textures, materials, scents, flavors and artwork soon to come during my stay. With a relatively compact footprint, it feels like every inch of the generous lobby has been carefully considered, and it’s perfectly human scale puts me at ease immediately. There’s a subtle scent of cedarwood wafting through the light, bright space – a signature scent developed specifically for the hotel by the architects. 

As we ascend the ten stories up to The Rangihoua Suite, the concierge explains I am being treated to The Landing Package, named after the renowned winery in Northland, who provide a bottle of their best Chardonnay as part of the welcome. There’s also a delicious platter waiting, with freshly baked sourdough bread, cultured butter and dry aged Kahawai all sent up from Kingi, the on-site restaurant which is a destination in its own right. The suite itself is stunningly well crafted – a refined palette, richly textured surfaces, and detailed with a delightful mix of artwork, books and perfectly framed harbour views – that make it tempting to spend the entire stay without leaving room at all. 

But Auckland beckons, including a tour of the Britomart area (included in The Landing Suite package) dinner at one of New Zealand’s best restaurants in Ahi. There’s an unwritten rule when it comes to a really special dining experience – find somewhere where the chef is the owner, and where that owner is still working in the kitchen. It can often be a short sweet spot in the life of a restaurant – the grind of working in a kitchen is tempting to escape, and once a restaurant gains a reputation for quality, most owner chefs gradually ease their way out of day-to-day cooking. Fortunately Ben Bayly is very much still ‘on the tools’, and exudes a passion for the exclusively local organic produce that enters his open plan kitchen. A fine example is the Te Matuku oyster starter, which is harvested at nearby Waiheke Island and paired with a sprig of apple marigold. It’s one of those beautifully simple dishes where the overriding taste is fresh ocean air. It couldn’t be more different from the next dish, the Scampi Corn Dog. “We sell squillions of them. You’ll see why when you taste it,” says Manager Edward when delivering the dish. One bite in, and I’m transported back to the age of 12, watching a demolition derby at the Wellington Speedway with my Dad and sister. That night was my first experience of the New Zealand corn dog (as well as my first and last experience of sprint car racing). Ahi’s version is a brilliant reimagining of this classic kiwi street food and wow, it’s perfect, especially with the house made burger sauce ready for dipping. The dishes keep flowing with a Wallaby Tartare and Courgette Flower – a lovely balance of sheep’s ricotta and fresh farm garden veggies. For my main I have gone for the Speared Butterfish, freshly caught by hand at the tip of South Island. As with everything I’ve eaten tonight, it’s fresh, balanced and just superb. Dessert, in the form of a chocolate delice with cheesecake sorbet, Northland blueberries and milk-jam, keeps the trend intact. 

After a restful night in one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever experienced, helped no doubt by the organic tea and chocolates provided as part of the turn down service, breakfast arrives early from Kingi and I soak up some vitamin D in the warm morning sun out on the private terrace. The sounds of the city echo up from below, and I’m reminded that check out is imminent and lunch on Waiheke Island beckons a short ferry trip away. Despite being within view of the city skyline, the atmosphere on Waiheke feels a million miles away. Quite, serene and a little bohemian, the locals here seem to know they’re onto a good thing.

Waiheke is home to around 10,000 residents and has become a popular destination for Aucklanders looking for an easy weekend away, or even a day trip to one of the wineries that dot the island. One of the most popular of these is Mudbrick Vineyard & Restaurant, set in an expansive rustic farmhouse high on the hill, with stunning views across the water to Auckland city. As with everything I’ve eaten since touching down, lunch here is superb, with fresh scallops and locally caught kingfish balancing perfectly with the paired estate grown wines.

After lunch, it’s a short trek to the highest point on the property (and one of the highest on Waiheke) to the waiting black helicopter that will be zipping me up the coast to Te Arai in around half and hour. The drive to Te Arai Links from Auckland is not an arduous one (90 minutes direct or 2 hours if done leisurely), but it’s hard to top the unspoilt views, speed and, let’s face it, sheer fun of taking a chopper. New Zealanders love their choppers and have one of the highest per capita fleets anywhere in the world – most likely a reflection of the extreme terrain found here as well the love of extreme sports. As the inventors of the jet boat and bungee jumping, kiwis seem more ready than most to chase an adrenaline hit, and almost any destination you might hit up will have some sort offering in this regard. One exception might be the tranquil surrounds Mangawhai and Te Arai Links itself, but as we descend on the ribbons of bright green turf weaving through pristine white sand dunes and pine forest, my heart definitely starts pumping a little faster. As the struts of the heli touch down gently on the ultra fine fescue landing pad at the end of the driving range, a black van pulls up, ready to take me to my accommodation. The feeling of being on property is serene – everything is paired back, minimalist, and exudes quality. If a singular physical place could define sprezzatura, then this must surely be it.

Check-in is completed in the serene, ultra minimalist clubhouse and as I roll up to the similarly subdued accommodation pods, I notice something that quietly blows my mind. As someone who spends a good chunk of my working life in a golf cart, I’ve had more than my share of spilled drinks, dropped cameras and crushed sunglasses from the bumps and shakes translated from the uneven ground of golf courses and resorts. But at Te Arai Links, there are absolutely no gutters. Every threshold, from the clubhouse, to the driving range, to the carpark, to the accommodation, is completely flush. It sounds like a simple thing, but as the husband of an architect, I know how difficult this is to achieve, even on the scale of residential buildings. To have no visible guttering or thresholds on a commercial scale shows an attention to detail that is rare. And it doesn’t stop there – the services for each of the accommodation pods – heating, air conditioning, laundry and disposal facilities – are discreetly hidden in separate but matching pods, offering no distraction from the beautifully calm timber cladding and natural landscaping.  

That natural, relaxed feeling continues as I enter the deluxe accommodation, one of 110 rooms on property – 48 Suites, 19 two-bedroom Cottages, and 6 four-bedroom villas. All are single level, and all with zero-threshold design. Warm timber, plush carpets, soft, cloud-like bedding, natural stone and loads of space – the comfort level is off the charts. There’s nothing flashy about it, nothing showy. Just all very high quality. A private balcony overlooking the 1st fairway of the South course, with a veiled view of the ocean beyond through a line of pine trees, tops it off.

But that’s where the smooth sailing, the duck above water vibes, ends for this trip. What follows this jaw dropping arrival is three days of unseasonably poor weather. It turns out in this part of the world at least, the arrival of La Nina means Northern New Zealand briefly resembles Northern Scotland – constant driving rain and gale force winds that bend the surrounding pine trees over like giant flagsticks (which were also bending over). 

The weather in our part of the world moves almost exclusively from west to east. This means whatever conditions we are experiencing in South-Eastern Australia are likely to be similar ‘across the ditch’ in New Zealand a couple of days later. But even with this cheat code in place, trying to time the weather for an international trip is purely a matter of playing the odds – nothing is certain and at some point you’ve got to just pull the trigger and go. And so it is that I’ve ended up on a red-eye flight from Melbourne to Auckland, back for another attempt to capture Te Arai Links in better light. It’s been almost six months since my last visit, but the planning for this trip has been a lot more streamlined – no relaxing stay in Auckland, no fancy dinners and winery lunches, and definitely no luxury helicopter transfers. This is a purely tactical, special operations style mission – return with a strong album of photography and video from Te Arai Links, or die. Ok that’s a bit dramatic. How about, just try and get some good photos. Either way, I’m focussed, and prepared for a few days of little to no sleep in aid of my goal. 

It doesn’t take long until I’m missing the creature comforts of my last trip. Since my last visit, Auckland (and large parts of Auckland Airport) have experienced once in a generation floods, and the long trek to the temporary hire car facilities means I’m feeling all 45kg of my luggage. Despite it being 2:30am and being literally the only person at Auckland Airport collecting a car, the process seems to be taking an age. By the time I roll out of the car park it’s after 3am, and I’m already battling with Google Maps –  the route it is suggesting doesn’t seem very ‘tactical’ and looks to involve a bunch of rural roads that I don’t really fancy battling at this time of night. I drag the route back onto State Highway 1 (SH1), the main road artery of New Zealand that runs literally the length of the country, and get going. Before long, a heavy fog rolls in. Like, really heavy fog. I’m forced to slow down to 80km/h, then 60, then 40 – I can only see about 20 meters ahead of me, the dense gray tube of the car headlights barely making an impact. I find some much needed company in the form of a local talk radio station, where they are discussing kiwi fruit gone wild. Apparently the vines that the fruit grow on have escaped the farms and are growing wild all over the North Island, killing off indigenous species and proving very hard to control. The worst part is that they’re not even producing any fruit – without artificial pollination the fruit won’t grow, so you just end up with giant tangles of useless vines. It is not a topic that would normally be all that invested in, but given I haven’t seen another car for 45 minutes and that I’m barely able to decipher the multiple detours and road work signs scattered along SH1 (apparently those same floods have caused massive damage along my route, hence Google’s suggestion of going around it, might have been nice if the hire car people had mentioned it during the 45 minutes I was in their office), the scourge of wild kiwi fruit is a welcome distraction. I battle on as the fog turns into light drizzle, then heavy rain.

The talk back chat moves onto ‘best live concert you’ve ever been to’ which provides some entertaining responses. I’m not sure if it is a joke or if I’m hearing things given the late hour, but one of the callers suggests that seeing Thin Lizzy in the late 70s was their best. As a half kiwi myself, I typically refrain from jokes about the kiwi accent, but hearing ‘Thun Luzzy’ at 4am has me chuckling. As I go further north, SH1 finally clears up, and I close in on the gates of Te Arai Links. Being such a last minute trip, I haven’t arranged after hours access to the resort. Instead I fold down the back seats, get into my sleeping bag and settle in for a power nap before sunrise.