Feel the spirit in Hokianga Haven

By DENISE McNABB

If we hadn't needed a place to store our bikes overnight we might have missed the "private collection" altogether.

Dreamy photos of New Zealand pressed on large blackboards adorn the basement garage walls in Heather Randerson's beachfront home. She has a flair for landscape photography.

To New Zealand soap fans, Randerson might be familiar as Heather Lindsay, who played Christine in Close to Home and Kirstin's mother in Shortland Street.

That her photos are relegated to the garage is not a case of hiding one's talent under a bushel. It's just that everywhere else already brims with an eclectic and stunning collection of New Zealand art and artefacts, the latter rippled with Maori and Oriental themes.

A discerning collector, Randerson has an innate ability to cluster treasures in a manner that is pleasing to eye in an uncluttered kind of way.

Five years ago she traded the bustle of Mt Eden in Auckland for the tranquil harbour lifestyle of Omapere in the Hokianga.

But it was no serendipitous decision. She can trace her European and Maori ancestors back five generations.

Heather is passionate about her heritage. It's reflected in every inch of her airy, wooden, split-level house nestled on a gentle slope off SH12 which runs down to the shoreline.

The first thing that strikes you when you open the front door is the pou (post), a gnarled golden trunk of totara, more than 4.5m high. It reaches right to the apex of the sloping roof and is rammed through the floor to the earth below connecting rangi (sky) and papa (earth).

There is just one guest room, so it's best suited to visit as a couple or solitary visitor. It is downstairs, with its centrepiece, a queen-sized bed, piled with turquoise cushions with golden threads and covered with a matching duvet and crisply pressed sheets. Pleat-neat, plump, fluffy towels with gold-foiled chocolates are a caring touch. The room also has its share of art, nude included.

With your own bathroom, television, microwave and fridge and a couch that faces to the outside, this is place to relish reclusion - for a while anyway.

Though the Roman blinds are diaphanous there seems little point in lowering them with such a postcard-pretty view of the harbour and honey-coloured dunes before you are even out of bed.

Under the vine-covered pergola right outside the room, a hammock is the perfect prop to relax to the rhythm of the sea and soak up the tranquillity that pervades this land of the Far North where legendary Kupe first sailed six centuries ago and where, in the 50s, Opo the bottle-nosed dolphin came to stay for a summer before being tragically killed.

Randerson's friendly mastiff, ridgeback and Labrador cross Saab might pay you a visit with that "please take me for a beach walk" look. You must oblige.

On the edge of the sliver of lawn between house and sea, the healthy potager garden is inhabited by two scarecrows. Randerson's longtime friend, beekeeper and retired university professor Ali Quin, reckons one of the scarecrows is modelled on him. Randerson assures it isn't, but it has to be said that the likeness is remarkable.

Quin plays innkeeper when Randerson is out of town. He's an excellent host during our stay and a dab hand at bacon and eggs. His crystalline manuka honey (with a dash of cabbage tree) is yummy on toast.

The breakfast choice is prolific: fresh juice and coffee or tea, muesli and guavas, toast and spreads and the full gamut of cooked foods which are served at a huge kauri dining table tucked into a nook with comfy bench seats. Large sofas, an equally large dresser and polished wooden floors are perfect foil to Heather's art. Upstairs is open-plan and glassed, exuding an insouciant air. It is also sumptuous and warm and strangely spiritual.

At the end of the day we sit up to our necks in the toasty-warm hot tub, twixt stars and scudding surf. Quin brings coffee and chocolate biscuits to munch and sup while we soak. It surely takes some beating.

* Denise McNabb paid for her stay at the Hokianga Haven.



Case notes

Where to find it

Hokianga Haven, 226, SH12, Omapere, Hokianga;

ph (09) 405 8285,

fax (09) 405 8215,

mobile 021 393 973; email

Getting there

Find it on the main road into Omapere from Dargaville, next to the information centre and museum.

It is 3 1/2 hours from Auckland via Dargaville.

What it costs

$130 a night (including full breakfast). Adults only.

Smoking No smoking indoors.

Accessibility

Wheelchair accessible

What to do

Walks in the Waipoua Forest, horse riding, harbour cruising, fishing, river and coastal swimming. An hour's walk brings you to South Head, where you can sit in warm rock pools at low tide.

Advisory

No eftpos or credit-card facilities. Cash or cheque payments only.