‘Some places seem to exist outside reality and Cape Kidnappers feels like one of them’
Some places seem to exist outside reality. Here, it feels as though we are bathed in a symphony of starlight, the heavens ablaze. It’s hard to keep my eyes on the ground, let alone my feet.
In the skies above us, the constellations are gathering. Across a night as black as velvet, the stars pop out one by one. When I first look up, around 8pm, the Southern Cross is shining brightly and, across the way, there’s Orion and the Big Dipper. By nine o’clock, so many stars have joined the cavalcade that the constellations are too numerous to name – and by 9.30pm, the whole of the Milky Way is blazing a trail through the universe. It feels as though we are sailors adrift on a distant sea, no light pollution to bother us here. It’s hard to keep your eyes on the ground when the heavens are ablaze.
“Oh yes,” says Phil, our guide taking us tonight on – of all things – a kiwi hunt. “Tonight’s a good night to be in Hawke’s Bay.”
Phil, in typical Kiwi fashion, is understating things a little. In his galoshes and his slightly torn jumper and khaki shorts, he’s ready for any challenge that comes his way on the kiwi hunt.
“We’re not, you know, killing kiwis, are we?” someone mutters quietly as we visitors gather for the fray. No, that would be ridiculous, considering we are entering a kiwi sanctuary, a small miracle that has seen the numbers of the world’s dumbest bird increase here from 78 to 600 since 2007.
“We’ll probably see kiwis tonight and if we’re lucky we can trap them along the fence and have a good look at them,” Phil assures us as we climb aboard his vehicle, some sort of golf buggy on steroids. “But sometimes we don’t see them. Not very often, but sometimes. But even then, there’s still the glow worms.”
All right, that’s something to look forward to, and as we head along the dark ridge of Rosewood Cape Kidnappers, an astonishingly beautiful property 40 minutes south of Napier, on New Zealand’s North Island, the night already feels magical.
For one thing, it’s warm, so even in March we walk around without long sleeves, and the air is so clean and clear it is as though the excesses of mankind never existed in the world. At least, they never existed here. And of course, above us, are all these stars.
Some places seem to exist outside reality and Cape Kidnappers feels like one of them.
Perched on the easterly tip of huge and glorious Hawke’s Bay, its history is almost as fabled as its status as one of the world’s finest luxury lodges.
Its moniker stems, apparently, from an attempt by some local Maori to abduct a member of Captain Cook’s crew when the Endeavour landed here in October 1769. The kidnapping failed, as legend has it, but the name stuck. There’s something about the romance of that story and the name that lingers still, and as you wander around the cape that’s now annexed by the hotel, it’s not difficult to visualise that 18th-century adventure taking place. The landscape is largely unchanged and the views mesmerising. Along one side of the peninsula, huge cliffs jut upwards from the sea, while private beaches dot the coastline and on the tip, a series of haystack-like rock formations make a dramatic counterpoint to the empty seascape and the huge blue sky beyond.
All this landscape belongs to what is now called Rosewood Cape Kidnappers Hotel, a property so vast it takes 15 minutes to drive from the gate to the 22-suite resort, nestled so beautifully into the landscape that you have to look twice to see it.
Most people come to Cape Kidnappers – and its sister property, Kauri Cliffs in Matauri Bay – for golf, with this course ranked No. 84 on the list of the world’s best. Created by golf course architect Tom Doak, the resort-style course is lush and pristine, the holes sculpted into the undulating hills of what for decades was a sheep station. I’m told only about 40 players hit the course each day, which means there is no queuing, no crowds and the clubhouse with its sublime views towards Napier is one of the great watering holes.
The hotel has changed management in the past 18 months, with the luxury Rosewood group now running the property after the passing in 2022 of Julian Robertson, the American finance billionaire who created the resort. The change seems smooth. Service is international and attentive, catering to the whims of the mostly high-net-worth US clientele who come to escape the pressures of corporate life.
Each suite is more like a compact home than a hotel room, with oversized bedrooms and bathrooms, rainwater showers, full baths, walk-in robes and verandas with uninterrupted views to eternity. The lodge has a gorgeous central dining area and relaxation hub, where guests can sit and take in the views over wine and snacks.
It’s here that we meet Phil for the kiwi hunt, the party comprising me, Phil, Lauren, who is here with her Philadelphia industrialist father, and Lauren’s boyfriend Drew, who informs me he is an actor working in LA. Obviously.
Phil seems nervous that we may not witness any kiwis on our trip but no more than 10 minutes into the escapade, as we zoom around a deserted field somewhere deep on the property, a black blob appears out of nowhere – it’s the famous flightless bird. We get close up to it before it hops away, but there is another, and another, and finally we trap one along the fence, just as Phil predicted.
We don’t touch it but get up close and look at it long enough to feel we’ve had a close encounter of the kiwi kind. “Most Kiwis have never seen a kiwi,” Phil informs us, “So you’ve done well.”
It’s quite a thrill but Phil isn’t done yet. A few hundred metres away, he stops the golf buggy beside a nondescript path and we hop out, descending some steps carved into the earth. It is so black we could be blind except for the stars sparkling overhead and the flash of our torches. We cross a creek and all of a sudden Phil says, “Look around.”
And we find ourselves in a ravine, the sides of which are illuminated with thousands upon thousands of twinkling glow worms. It is as though we have entered a fairy cave, the tiny sparks illuminated with minuscule pops of light. “And look up,” Phil advises, and we look upwards to the sky, to where the Milky Way is dazzling too. It feels as though we are bathed in a symphony of starlight. Few places on Earth could be as magical as this.
Checklist
Getting there: Cape Kidnappers is on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, about 40 minutes south of Napier. Fly to Auckland or Wellington then onwards to Napier. The estate can arrange transfers from the airport.
Stay: Rosewood Cape Kidnappers and its sister property Rosewood Kauri Cliffs have a winter golf and accommodation special running May 1-September 30, open to Australians and New Zealanders. The $NZ2530 ($A2130) covers suite accommodation for two, breakfast, pre-dinner aperitifs, dinner and a choice between a day of unlimited green fees or a 50-minute massage/facial (per person per night stayed) (rosewoodhotels.com/en/cape-kidnappers).
Eat: The onsite restaurant is one of the most scenically located dining rooms in New Zealand. Expect contemporary antipodean fare like southern bluefin tuna with kumara and XO sauce, and slow-roasted beef tenderloin with potato, black garlic, broccolini and horopito jus. The cooking is excellent and the New Zealand wines are a treat. Breakfast is also served in the dining room, with a European-style buffet and a la carte options such as buckwheat pancakes and avo and tomato on sourdough.
Do: Cape Kidnappers especially caters for golfers but for non golfers there is still plenty to do. In the vicinity, find great wineries including Craggy Range, Elephant Hill and Clearview Estate. The Cape Sanctuary Night Tour (the kiwi hunt) can be booked at reception. Also popular is a sheep shearing experience, in which visitors spend a morning actually shearing the property’s innumerable sheep. The onsite spa has a smorgasbord of treatments, with a particular focus on massage.
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