KEY POINTS:
Lucy Honeychurch, that slightly dim creation of novelist E.M. Forster, longed for a room with a view. She should have come to Pukeko Landing. The view there goes on forever and, even if it isn't of the Arno trickling through the centre of Florence, at least she could have admired the view from the bath.
The bath comes with instructions at this luxury retreat perched in the bush above Lake Tarawera. This can be alarming, particularly because one of the instructions reads: "When the bath starts overflowing, leave the water running for another minute or two." This is made possible by the fact that the bath is surrounded by a large moat, an overflow channel from which water is sucked and reheated before being pumped back in while you lie back and enjoy the view.
The vista in question is the Otumutu Lagoon, a tranquil arm at the northern end of the lake. Ducks and swans cut through the millpond-calm water leaving V-shaped wakes. The pukeko that give the place its name, sound the tinny rasp of their call - it's just enough to make it romantic, but not enough to be irritating.
A pair of piwakawaka swoop and dart through the regenerating bush that clothes the slope down to the lake. On the far side, baches and houses snuggle into the trees, and, mercifully, only one house perches on the ridgeline, imposing on the view and proclaiming its owner's supremacy over his environment. Beyond big trees stand like sentries on the hilltops, dramatically lit by the sun peeping through the clouds.
A neatly pebbled path snakes through the bush to the lagoon, where a dinghy awaits the energetic. The home has its own jetty, jutting out over the impossibly clear water, which would be very alluring at the height of summer.
In better weather I might have started a game of petanque on the lakeside lawn, but I got tired just thinking about it and decided another bath was a better idea.
The fabled Solitaire Lodge, only a few minutes walk away, would have satisfied any fancy we might have had for some fine dining, but my definition of a retreat includes not seeing anyone else, so we settled for a simple meal of our own, preparing pasta, salad and wine and enjoying it in front of the roaring fire.
Lest anyone should think we were totally slothful, we did venture down to the reserve on the other side of the peninsula, a walk that would have been easily a kilometre each way. We felt like polar explorers and were rewarded at the end of this arduous trek with an expansive view of the mountain that so spectacularly erupted in 1886. We stood and marvelled as the light faded and then headed back. It was, after all, bath time.
*Peter Calder stayed at Pukeko Landing as a guest of Essence of New Zealand.
- Detours, HoS
