Fancy a weekend away at a remote wilderness retreat?
You’d never guess what goes on before you check-in,
says John Corbett.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013, 10.45am: The Abel Tasman Sea Shuttle is a truly multifunctional beast. As well as ferrying hikers to and from the national park, it pauses for photo opportunities of giant Ice Age rocks and seal colonies and skirts gently around little blue penguins doing their aquatic thing. On this blustery spring morning it is also carrying a group of sightseeing seniors from Dunedin who are fully enjoying the swells from a distant storm and the “car wash” effect when the vessel rounds a headland and gallons of seawater slosh across the windshield.
This morning too, says Skipper Rory in one of his on-board commentaries, the Shuttle is carrying a big load of supplies: crates of milk, cartons of free-range eggs, chilly bins of meat and moon shell clams and hot-smoked swordfish belly and sacks of basmati rice. All are destined for Peppers Awaroa Lodge. Ninety minutes up the coast from Kaiteriteri the Sea Shuttle heads towards a beach. Its proboscis-like gangplank snakes forward on to the sand, a winch anchor deploys simultaneously from the stern and the motor stays thrumming while the supplies are quickly unloaded.
One of New Zealand’s leading eco lodges, Peppers Awaroa Lodge is tucked discreetly into the surrounding kanuka and beech forest.
All of the staff from Peppers Awaroa Lodge are waiting on the beach, including Jon Monaghan, the newly appointed Executive Chef who is eager to get his hands on some of the ingredients he’ll need when the lodge reopens for the season in two days’ time. A few minutes later everything has been packed into covered trailers towed by the lodge’s Yamaha Rhino 660 off-road vehicles and we power up a boardwalk and along an unsealed track into the forest.
Almost every guest, everywhere, is unaware of the amount of hard work that lies behind their hospitality experience. If your lodging is located in a remote wilderness area, the effort is multiplied several times. Located in the northern section of the Abel Tasman National Park at the top of the South Island, Peppers Awaroa Lodge has no road access. It can be reached only by water taxi from Kaiteriteri and Nelson, by air on to a grass strip near the lodge, and on foot from the Abel Tasman Coastal Track.
Heavy supplies such as vehicles, equipment and diesel and LPG gas for the lodge’s generators are brought in over the ranges from Golden Bay on a road whose last 12 kilometres are rough and unsealed. The road ends at the Awaroa Inlet several kilometres from the lodge and supplies are transported by barge and then unloaded on to the Rhinos.
If that’s not strenuous enough, Peppers Awaroa Lodge compounds it by being one of the country’s leading eco lodges. Accommodating up to 90 people in 26 Superior Suites, Standard Rooms and Family Rooms, the lodge is benchmarked Earthcheck Silver Status, a world-recognised standard for environmental care that requires comprehensive recycling practices, specially designed waste water and sewage treatment systems and rigorous staff and supplier training. The lodge is also a contributor to the Nelson-Tasman Sustainable Tourism Charter and sources from local producers and suppliers wherever possible.
Some of the handmade furnishings from the lodge’s early years (shown here) are still used. Recent additions include 12 luxurious Superior Suites designed by one of New Zealand’s top architecture firms.
Wednesday, 2pm: Lunch at a large table in the lodge’s Harakeke Restaurant is hot-smoked swordfish mash topped with a free-range poached egg, slivers of crisp prosciutto and lemon beurre blanc. It’s the test of a recipe for the new breakfast and lunch menu and it’s quickly decided that smoked kahawai would deliver more “oomph” than swordfish. Talk then turns to the other work proceeding around the lodge.
General Manager Suzanne Wells is in charge of bringing the lodge back to life after its annual winter closure from late April to late September. Since arriving eight days ago Suzanne has completely inspected the property, including the private walking trails that lead off from the property, noting anything that needs to be tidied or repaired. She is currently worried about a balky computer server whose smooth operation is essential as bookings for the new season come in.
Executive Chef Jon Monaghan has been settling into his very large kitchen since last Sunday, checking the provisioning and cool rooms, including one made from a converted container and known as “Fat Albert”. He’s also been writing menus, ordering supplies and testing the kitchen’s seven ovens for their pastry-making and other abilities – they’re already producing a variety of delicious breads. The day before he began work on a jus (sauce reduction) for Friday’s dinner. The first guests booked in for that day are a family group of five. Travellers from Europe and North America make up a high percentage of the lodge’s guests but New Zealanders and Australians are also well represented.
Ben, the twentysomething Food & Beverage Manager, has the job of ensuring that the lodge’s expansive lounge areas – currently a forest of stacked tables, chairs, sofas and other furniture – are spick-and-span by Friday. A veteran from last season, he is now assuming more roles as a trainee manager. Also at the table is René, a master-of-all-trades responsible for maintaining the generators and much else around the property. He is also the source of the low hum of waterblasting that I’ve heard since I arrived. Assisting him is Adam, the lodge’s young porter and gardener who is keen to learn all about the hospitality trade. Suzanne says he’s definitely come to the right place.
Next week a commis chef will arrive to help Jon in the kitchen and a sous-chef will start at the end of October. At the peak of the holiday season the lodge will employ up to 20 casual staff. For now though, the task of readying the large property for business falls to five hardworking people.
Abel Tasman National Park is the smallest of the nation’s national parks at 22,530 hectares, but arguably one of the loveliest. Opened in 1942 on the 300th anniversary of the visit of Abel Tasman, the first European explorer to reach New Zealand, the park is renowned for its world-famous coastal walking track and the hundreds of sheltered coves and beaches that make it a summer paradise for swimming, sea kayaking and sailing.
The park is still a work in progress. Nineteenth-century settlers viewed this magnificent landscape very differently and after the coastal forests had been logged, the granite quarried from the cliffs and farming in the remote region had become uneconomic, the hills were invaded by gorse and bracken. Public concern about the prospect of even more logging saw the government of the time step in; seventy years on, only a few small freehold beach properties remain and the park is steadily regenerating.
The lodge has morphed along with its setting. The first building, erected in 1991, was a homespun affair that served tea and scones to trampers visiting the national park. The lodge has since passed through several hands and several expansions and is now managed by the Peppers Group of hotels, resorts and retreats. Some of the handcrafted furniture made by the first owners is still in use; the most recent additions are 12 luxurious Superior Suites designed by the leading Wellington architecture firm, Athfield Architects.
The Abel Tasman National Park is a summer paradise for water-based activities. The other big drawing card is the world-famous Abel Tasman Coastal Track.
Thursday 12pm: Lunch of frittata with a beetroot kasoundi, microgreen salad and the most delicious frites (chips) I’ve had in years passes another menu test. Chef Jon obviously has a secret frites technique but he’s definitely not telling. The other news is not so good: the recalcitrant computer server failed overnight and left on the 10.45am Sea Shuttle to be repaired in Nelson. It will be back tomorrow and in the meantime reservations are being handled with pen and paper.
Ben is in the middle of a big day that involves cleaning all the windows in the main restaurant and the glassed-in dining conservatory, and spring-cleaning and setting up the lobby lounges and their adjacent verandas and courtyard. Several menu files that were lost when the server crashed have to be retyped. Music for the public areas has to be chosen and a myriad of glassware, utensils and other hospitality items all have to find their correct places.
This afternoon, René and Adam are set to continue waterblasting and tidying the walking paths near the lodge with a tractor. Suzanne will don her housekeeping hat and prepare several rooms and suites for the first guests. Each room is cleaned, the gas heating and power supplies checked, fresh linen placed on the beds and the bathroom stocked with towels, bamboo-fibre toilet tissue and organic soap and shower gels. Later in the evening Suzanne will help René bring more fuel across the inlet by barge. I stay out of everybody’s way and go for a walk.
Several thousand years ago the sandy terrace that forms the flat land of Awaroa Bay was built up by seaward-advancing dunes. Native forest became established and the streams flowing down from the hills that rise steeply behind the bay pooled behind the terrace to form a wetland. This sheltered place with its mild and sunny climate and abundant resources was settled by Maori for hundreds of years. Later, until the timber was gone and the shipping services declined with the opening of the Takaka Hill Road, it supported European settlers and farmers.
In the 1960s new owners began efforts to enhance the wetland, which had been drained for pasture, to bring back the bird and animal life. Since 2002, an enhancement project with the local iwi and Tasman District Council has seen the Awaroa Wetland become the thriving home of native plants, fish, longfin eels, birds and other creatures. The nearby three-kilometre curve of Awaroa Beach, where I walked strictly along the high water mark as requested by the DOC signs, is a haven for shore-nesting seabirds.
At the sandy point where the Awaroa Inlet empties like a mill race into the sea, there are dozens of glossy black oystercatchers with psychedelic-orange beaks, and banded dotterels. Offshore, cormorants dive-bomb shoals of fish. Looking north towards the final stretch of the park, there are remnants of the ancient rata and beech forests that once clothed the region and it is easy to imagine this landscape as it was before the arrival of man.
Some of the lodge’s enviable amenities include a very large organic garden, run on biodynamic principles.
Friday 12pm: Hikers are obviously reading the signs posted on the Track about the reopening of the lodge and the first casual guests of the season – a family of four – drop in for lunch in the spruced-up courtyard. A trio of young women with backpacks materialises next and then some feisty young South American dudes who thought that Abba Lodge, the lodge’s backpacker accommodation tucked away down a trail, might be open. Next week. They’ll stay in a DOC hut tonight.
Suzanne is running on adrenalin today. The staff correctly calculated the tide times for the barge crossings last night, but the supplies were far heavier than expected and the barge had to wait until full tide to return. She got to bed at 3am and was up again at 6am. The good news is that the server arrived back an hour ago and is now running the lodge’s email and Wi-Fi perfectly. Suzanne heads off to inspect René and Adam’s tidying of the driftwood gardens around the rooms and suites.
Part of the lodge’s Harakeke Restaurant includes a glassed-in dining conservatory with views over the wetland.
Friday 7.30pm: Opening day has gone smoothly and dinner in the Harakeke Restaurant is a resounding success. An entrée of pan-fried chilli squid salad with spiced nuts, water chestnuts and a sweet soy and lime dressing is matched with a lovely Seifried Estate gewürztraminer. It’s followed by a sage and Dijon-roasted rack of lamb with golden kumara mash, baby spring vegetables and Jon’s completed redcurrant jus, matched with a pinot noir from Central Otago. Dessert is a lemon and grapefruit brûlée tart made with fruit from the lodge’s large organic garden.
Suzanne is quietly confident that Jon Monaghan’s appointment will put the lodge on the culinary map. Trained at both The Ritz London and The Ritz Paris, the New Zealand-born chef has an impressive international career portfolio that includes roles in Michelin-starred restaurants such as Paul Rankin’s Cayenne in Belfast, and cooking for luxury overland safaris in Southern Africa. He has also held teaching and chef positions in Australia and New Zealand, most recently at Botswana Butchery in Wanaka. Special degustation menu events are planned for the summer that will showcase the fresh produce and wines of the Nelson/Tasman region. With several Sea Shuttle services to and from the lodge each day during summer, food lovers will be able to enjoy a leisurely lunch, or stay longer.
Speaking of which, I retired for the evening feeling happy, but not just gastronomically. A stay in a remote wilderness setting like Peppers Awaroa Lodge makes you realise why it’s the perfect place for a corporate retreat or short break. There is no cell phone coverage, no newspapers and no TV (although there is Wi-Fi if you can’t tear yourself away from modern life.) The surprising thing is that after the first day you don’t miss any of it. All of the techno-clutter and chatter attached to your life falls away. You slow down, feel calmer and pay attention to things that really matter.
Before dinner on the second day of my stay I sat for a few minutes on the private balcony of my Superior Suite with a glass of wine. A fantail jigged about in the tree in front of me and songbirds – there are tui, bellbirds and grey warblers here – called across the wetland. As the light faded I heard a burbling sound and three pukeko appeared in the wetland directly beneath the balcony, deep in debate. It was the breeding season and a tiff broke out between two suitors. One was seen off and the victor began an amorous chase of the female. It was as engrossing as anything I’ve seen on National Geographic.
This story first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times. John Corbett travelled to Peppers Awaroa Lodge with the assistance of Peppers Retreats, Resorts and Hotels.
Getting there
Air New Zealand Link flies to Nelson from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Palmerston North several times daily. www.airnewzealand.co.nz
Abel Tasman Sea Shuttle operates four daily water taxi and scenic cruises to Abel Tasman National Park from Nelson and Kaiteriteri.www.abeltasmanseashuttles.co.nz
Where to stay
Peppers Awaroa Lodge, www.peppers.co.nz