For the Kiwi-born leader of the order, choosing the 16 Ngakuru hectares was helped by having relatives living nearby.
She was lucky; finding Tyburn's no easy task. A Ngakuru "native" from whom we sought directions was clueless. If she hadn't consulted the local rural delivery postie we'd still be none the wiser of Tyburn's whereabouts.
In truth, the monastery may appear remote but it's little more than a 40-minute drive from downtown Rotorua.
As its prioress, Mother Philippa Mary, says: it's far enough away from the city to be secluded, yet close enough to reach for those who use it as a spiritual sanctuary. In the two years it's been operating, many from across the faiths (non-believers are equally welcome) have retreated there for the peace of the place. Forward bookings stretch well into next year.
But it's not the retreatees we've come to meet, rather we seek out its two "head honchos", the recently arrived Mother Philippa Mary and her predecessor as prioress, now bursar, Mother Angela, who's been at the monastery from day one.
Malaysian-raised Mother Philippa Mary arrived in Ngakuru after 10 years at Bombay. Mother Angela is a UK import. Between them, they oversee seven sisters in various stages of their Benedictine "training".
Ngakuru's Tyburn is something of a mini United Nations, with Kiwis, a Malaysian, an Australian-Chinese, a Brit and a Tongan living in house.
Officially described as "contemplative nuns in a cloistered community", few will quibble that, for these sisters, theirs is a monastic life. They sleep in cells, are up at 4.45am, in bed shortly after 9pm. A regularly tolling bell governs their unchanging timetable. Their rigidly structured lives are divided between domestic and devotional duties.
At the monastery's heart is its 90-year-old chapel, the former parish church for Taneatua Catholics. Its Tiffany glass windows, depicting the Lenten Journey, are breath-catchingly beautiful.
It's here that the monastery's occupants spend much of their day, housekeeping, gardening and lesson apart. The latter come via correspondence courses from the London Mother House.
Unlike Trappist Monks, remaining mute isn't one of the Benedictine order's commandments but the sisters only speak when necessary and an hour a day is set aside for what Mother Philippa Mary calls "our great silence".
She defines its purpose as helping the sisters focus on God.
"To think of Him, to pray and keep themselves into the presence of God."
The afternoon recreational hour brings freedom to chat but conversation is muted. This is the time when craft work or gardening is done.
Without television or newspapers, contact with the outside world is obviously limited, but when something of the magnitude of the Christchurch earthquake strikes, the sisters soon know about it. Mother Angela says disasters quickly bring requests for prayers.
The residents' only forays into the wider world are for medical or dental appointments.
With the diet these women have, we suspect their teeth and health are in fine nick. Partially vegetarian, meat's restricted to Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Meals are accompanied by spiritual readings, dinner is at what most Kiwis regard as lunchtime. "That's our main meal, supper's much more frugal, cereal, a boiled egg," Mother Philippa Mary tells us with her delightfully girlish giggle.
It's a sudden insight into the psyche of this 43-year-old nun who entered the order at 27. Malaysian-born, she moved to Australia in 1990. It was while undertaking post-graduate study in music at the University of Adelaide that she received what she acknowledges was 'the calling'. "Goodness", we ask somewhat cynically, "does this really happen?"
"Indeed, yes. I was brought up a Catholic and, at 24, developed this strong attraction to religious life and a desire to give myself totally to God as repayment for his great love for us."
She entered New South Wales' Riverstone Tyburn Monastery as a postulant (a potential candidate for a nun's life) and spent time at the order's Manly monastery before crossing the Tasman to Bombay in 2000. "I was a junior, still to make my final vows ... for many years I was the dinner cook, in 2009 I became the prioress".
She took up her Ngakuru appointment in August and loves the place. "It's so tranquil, somewhere people, whatever their beliefs, can feel close to God."
With her arrival, Mother Angela assumed the bursar's role. "I'm the one who looks after the money". She views the job as more suited to her 75 years. "I'm not getting any younger, next November's my golden jubilee [as a nun]."
She certainly did the hard yards in the Ngakuru monastery's early days. "For quite some time we lived in the garage, sleeping in curtained cubicles while the house was built ... now that really was spartan."
Mother Angela's path to prioress was a little more worldly and interdenominational than her colleague's.
She wasn't Catholic-born. "I suppose, if anything, I was an Anglican but at 5 I was sent to a convent boarding school to avoid the wartime bombings and I guess it [Catholicism] kind of rubbed off on me."
The appeal of the church came while she was working in London's West End as an accountant with the Rock Building Society ... "the first to go bust in the recent recession".
Socially, her life was good. "There was plenty of dancing, going out, I had a lot of friends, but inside something was pulling me. My parents were very upset. My father offered me a share in his antique business, a car, a flat, to try and stop me [taking holy orders] but I said 'no, I'm not interested'."
Her monastic career has an international flavour. It's been divided between Britain, Ireland's County Cork, Manly and, for 12 years, London, close to the site of the infamous Tyburn Gallows. The monastery takes its title from the area's historic name. It's in the vicinity of what we know today as Marble Arch.
Mother Angela's inter-denominational connections continue. Her brother is a Church of Scotland elder, she arrived in New Zealand in 2009 with a niece heading for Evangelical Church missionary work.
Press her to choose her favourite posting and it's a toss-up between County Cork and Ngakuru. "I love the west of Ireland but I think Ngakuru might win. A lady came in the other day from Australia and left saying 'I've never been in heaven before'."
And the origin of that name God's Road that leads to this slice of earthy heaven? Credit for that goes to Mother General, undoubtedly a woman of wit. It's a clever play on the name Dods Rd, the rural byway winding past the monastery's front gate.
Footnote: God's Road, an exhibition of photographs from Ngakuru's Tyburn Monastery, opened last night at RAVE and runs until December 11. They are the work of The Daily Post photographer Andrew Warner. who will return part of the proceeds to the monastery.
TYBURN MONASTERY AND BENEDICTINE NUNS
First London Tyburn Monastery founded: 1903 by Mother Marie Adele Garnier
Sited: Close to the infamous Tyburn Gallows where many
Catholic martyrs were hanged at the time of the Reformation
Number worldwide: 10 (Australia and New Zealand have two each)
Holy worship: Daily Masses, prayers offered 7 times a day, divine office observed with signing of 150 psalms on a weekly basis. Roster allocates nuns to half hour vigils for the on-going Adoration of the The Blessed Sacrament.
Clothing: Traditional full-length black habit
Ngakuru site's purchase: "We couldn't afford it but we trusted in the Lord, prayed hard and He found a lot of benefactors for us"
Personal Philosophies:
Mother Philippa Mary: "To put God before everything else in life... God is our ultimate"
Mother Angela: "God is the one that matters"
