Enjoying the moose and quiet
New Zealand’s Kauri Cliffs Golf Course has made a name for itself as one of the top 10 golf courses in the world. With spectacular cliff top views and a luxury lodge in which to rest your head at the end of a hard day’s golf, it’s a golfer’s nirvana down under.
While Kauri Cliffs is the diamond, there are other little-known gems shining away around New Zealand. Take Moose Lodge and Golf Resort. It sounds more Canadian than New Zealand, but it’s a luxurious 20-room hotel on the shores of Lake Rotoiti, 20 minutes from popular tourist thermal region Rotorua. It’s so named because back in around 1898, Canadian dentist Dr Frederick Raynor and his American heiress wife came to New Zealand on their honeymoon. They fell in love with the country and decided to live in Auckland, using Moose Lodge as a hideaway holiday home. The might of the Customs Department hadn’t yet kicked in, and the dentist was able to place a memento of home - a moose head - on the wall. It still sits there today in a glass case at the entrance to the Lodge.
Despite the moose connection, there was no favour shown to the moose’s cousins. A deer farm next door to the Moose Lodge property was quickly eyed as a future golf course when the current owners bought the Lodge. They wanted to develop a course as part of a grand plan to restore the Lodge to its glory of yesteryear.
That glory had seen Queen Elizabeth II stay at the Lodge, not long after her coronation. Many British dignitaries and heads of state were also guests around this time, when the Lodge was owned by Sir Noel Cole, a good friend of Dr Raynor, who had taken over the Lodge when Raynor died. In the 1970s, both Prince Charles and Princess Anne were guests, and the Lodge today has a small ‘royal wall’ with photos of these visits in its games room.
After Cole died, the Lodge passed to the Campbells, a South Island farming family who also farmed in Australia. They later moved there, so in the late 70s it was sold to the Officers of Invercargill, who then sold it to Omni Realty & Services Ltd, its current owners.
‘We fell in love with Moose Lodge as it had the potential for expansion and the inclusion of a private double nine-hole golf course if the owner of the neighbouring deer farm accepted our offer,’ explains Shirley Chan, one of three owners. She is Managing Director at the Lodge, while the other two proprietors live in Japan and Singapore. The deer farm owner accepted the group’s offer and the new owners set about renovating the Lodge and laying the greens.
The owners had been visiting top New Zealand lodges for some time - staying at Huka Lodge, Solitaire Lodge, Puka Park and Moose Lodge during their trips. They saw Moose Lodge’s potential - particularly once their dream of a golf course had been realised.
The Lodge has its own lakefront and helipad - with several of the super yacht owners choppering in to stay during the 2000 America’s Cup. The property is covered in native trees and ferns, providing home to native birds such as tuis and wood pigeons (kereru).
‘When you get through the iron gates, the whole world and the highway we are right on is left behind - it is like entering Camelot,’ says Chan. ‘It’s incredible! It’s easy and quick to get to for weary travellers and yet is a completely private paradise once you enter the estate.’
Chan says the owners felt when they bought the property it had the potential to reach international standards. Since then they have pumped a lot of money into the resort, and have made use of natural resources by adding an extra indoor hot pool of natural mineral water from the site’s own bore.
The Lodge prides itself on its privacy. And with no more than 40 people able to stay at one time, there’s no waiting to tee off at the golf course.
‘We offer a home away from home to those who seek a retreat,’ says Chan.
The course is not intended to be in the league of Kauri Cliffs, but to give the visitor a sense of being able to play golf on their own private golf course. Guests aren’t charged green fees, and professional lessons are on offer if required.
‘We nicknamed it the millionaire golf course because you really feel like one when you play it - with your very own golf course in your back yard,’ says Chan.
The course has a trout stream running through its length, full of rainbow trout. Trout often try to jump from the stream up a small waterfall, just as salmon do.
Chan says despite the owners being foreign investors, their emphasis in running the Lodge has been on maintaining the very Kiwi hospitality they encountered when they first visited.
‘We offer New Zealand hospitality which our international guests see in our Kiwi staff,’ says Chan, who is one of the few non-New Zealanders on staff. ‘This was what we found so charming about Kiwis. Our staff are not pretentious; they’re warm and welcoming and very accommodating. Kiwis are lovely in that they are never looking down their noses or pretending to be someone other than themselves - we found that so refreshing when we used to be visitors so now I bring that to our guests.’
Ninety percent of the Lodge’s visitors are from countries other than New Zealand. As well as golf, other attractions include a tennis court, kayaking and canoeing on the lake, trout fishing in Lake Rotoiti, and lolling about in one of the resort’s hot mineral pools.
‘We offer Moose Lodge and Golf Resort to the rest of the world with definite emphasis on showcasing what we found so charming about New Zealand when we were guests here,’ says Chan. ‘We also sell excellent New Zealand wines, a few Australian reds and nothing else apart from a few French champagnes.
‘As foreign owners, we had no intentions of changing what we found so charming about Moose Lodge - if we did we could have bought a bare piece of land and built it up from nothing and put in dragon boats, Chinese bells and Asian food!’
Like many of her key staff, Chan is still in love with the beauty of the area, and is fascinated by the Lodge’s history.
‘In all the black and white photos, I always notice the romantic, smiling feel of the days, the appreciation of all things beautiful - and yet simple,’ she says.
‘These days we have become so lost to those simple beauties - I often sit and ‘hear’ the silence and the lake waves and just marvel at the beauty of the wood pigeons that perch just three feet away from me in a branch, or the tuis who sing so beautifully while they eat the fruit of the Himalayan strawberries or the fantails that follow me as I walk on the lawn.’
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