New Zealand: Golf and history meet at The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs

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New Zealand: Golf and history meet at The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs

By Brian Johnston
Aerial view of the golf course at The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs.

Aerial view of the golf course at The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs.

A painted face with a thrust-out tongue glares down the forest pathway that leads towards the spa at The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs. Below is a line of mythological manaia figures with the beaked heads of birds that look as if they're about to peck out your eyes.

These land posts, or pouwhenua, are used by the Maori to mark significant places or territorial boundaries. No wonder their carved creatures are popeyed and angry-looking. This Northland coastline saw the arrival of Captain Cook and early European missionaries and settlers, not good news for the Maori who had enjoyed this land of abundance for generations.

"The ribbons of all these stories have wound their way through Kauri Cliffs," says guest-relations manager Michael Venner, whose poetic turns of phrase he might owe equally to his Maori mother and Cornish father. I recognise the dispossessed Celtic nostalgia for an idealised past, but perhaps that's a Maori characteristic, too.

Northland is a paradise lost of glorious beaches, lush forest and wild headlands. On one of those headlands sits top luxury hotel The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs, fronting one of the world's top golf courses. Yet three-quarters of guests aren't golfers at all, content that Northland provides plenty of other pleasures. Some don't even leave The Lodge's 6500 acres of coastal rainforest, walking tracks and private beaches.

I'm on a cultural tour of those acres with Venner, and even the stand of forest between lodge and spa offers insights. We nibble on a kawakawa leaf, which the Maori used as bush medicine and which is now considered a superfood. "Well call it Maori pepper, it's great in gin and tonic," says Venner, though it's kawakawa tea with Manuka honey that awaits on a tray deposited on a tree stump.

Venner shows us the hen-and-chicken fern, whose leaf is used like parsley and whose roots can be roasted. New Zealand's national symbol, the silver fern, grows around here, too. It's dark green on top and silvery underneath - bend a frond upwards and it becomes a trail marker in the moonlight.

We stop by a giant kauri tree with a nine-metre circumference that was here even before the Maori. Northland was once covered in forests of these giants. "The forest, the land and the sea were all deeply respected for their wonder and beauty," says Venner. "The Maori world is a very mystical realm."

We head to Waiaua Beach, which has fine white sand. Lodge guests come here for snorkelling, fishing and kayaking, or to explore the offshore islands. Local Maoris sighted Captain Cook's ship from here. We gaze across at the headland where missionary Samuel Marsden preached New Zealand's first sermon. The pretty 1819 Kerikeri Mission Station, New Zealand's early capital Russell and Waitangi Treaty Grounds are nearby, easily visited on a day out.

At Kauri Cliffs, only introduced wildflowers that grow along the tracks are a reminder of the early European settlers who once lived here in stone cottages. We drive over the headlands, past stands of Norfolk pines and cattle-chewed hills, down to Pink Beach, covered in tiny pink shells washed up from the ocean.

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Here, Venner shows us the purerehua, a musical instrument whirled around your head that makes a fluttering sound said to resemble that of a moth in flight. "Moths only live a few days, it represents the transience of life, all your thoughts and emotions can travel up the string to be released into the wind," says Venner.

It's a lovely notion, and not of the type encountered often in luxury hotels. Northland's haunting history and heroic landscapes do that to you, even here in such indulgent surrounds.

TRIP NOTES

Brian Johnston was a guest of New Zealand Tourism and Relais & Châteaux.

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traveller.com.au/new-zealand

newzealand.com/au

FLY

Air New Zealand operates multiple flights between Australia and Auckland. Kauri Cliffs is a four-hour drive north, or a flight to Bay of Islands Airport. See airnewzealand.com.au

STAY

The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs is notable for its championship golf course, and excellent spa and restaurant. The property is Relais & Châteaux branded. Rooms from $1500 a night. Phone 1300 121 341, see relaischateaux.com

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