When I was a kid, Matakana was just a bend in the road on the way to, well, nowhere in particular. Now it's a destination in itself, with its market and cinemas, as well as being a service centre for the upscale bach community at Omaha. (You know you're not in any old small town when the Four Square stocks freeze-dried raspberry powder.) It's also a lot closer to Auckland than it was in the 1980s, making it super-accessible for a day trip or, as we did, an easy overnight getaway.
With a weather window opening up between winter storms, we decided to escape the city for a school holiday family mini-break. Armed with a couple of Grab One deals and two preschoolers, we headed north late morning, in time for lunch at Plume.
Fortunately it's warm enough to sit outside and let the children run ever-so-slightly riot in the gardens while we enjoy a glass of Runner Duck syrah - produced from grapes grown just down the road by restaurant manager Farida Cooper's husband Clyde - and a superb meal, with views out over the Matakana countryside. The shower clouds miraculously pass by on all sides without landing one drop on us.
It's time to put our feet up and recover, so we head for our accommodation, at Riverside Matakana on the other side of the Glen Eden River. We are spending the night in one of their cleverly designed "baches" - fully equipped standalone holiday homes built very much in the Kiwi vernacular, with dark-stained ply exteriors. There are great rural views, and the kids and I head down to the river to throw sticks in the water, look for crabs and cockles and spot mangrove-monsters.
