Travel blog

Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.

Showing 5 of 236 posts

Cape Kidnappers, the Tom Doak design on Julian Robertson's property above the cliffs of Hawke's Bay

January 30, 20154 min read2015

Dateline January 30, 2015, Cape Kidnappers

From Millhills Lodge to Cape Kidnappers, the Tom Doak course on Julian Robertson's six-thousand-acre former sheep farm on Hawke's Bay. The TomTom got us to the entrance in thirty minutes. Then we learned it was another fifteen-minute drive on the inside road just to reach the clubhouse, narrow and winding and lined with speed bumps. Like Kauri Cliffs, we were among only eight players on the course that day. The staff was mostly young Americans on their post-college golf years, one from Penn State, all on their way back to the US to take jobs at courses there. We played the first two holes. We arrived at the third. Peter, Janice, and John all missed the green. Then Bunny stepped up and put it in the cup for her first hole-in-one. From there the course winds in and out of the fingers of land that drop straight off the cliffs, with cows as our gallery and electric fencing going up around us. At the turn the lodge brought down sandwiches. The back nine plays along the cliff edges, with the danger signs to match. Back to Millhills Lodge for Penny's gourmet dinner.

#new-zealand #cape-kidnappers #hawkes-bay

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New Zealand

January 29, 20152 min read2015

Dateline January 29, 2015, Golf at the Jack Nicklaus-Designed Kinloch Golf Club

Thursday morning, one more goodbye to Pat and Russell at Ambleside, and on to Kinloch Golf Club. Kinloch was designed by Jack Nicklaus, about seven years before our visit, for a wealthy New Zealander who knew nothing about golf. Phil, the club's golf professional, joked that the owner probably googled 'best golfer in the world,' found Jack, and asked him to build a course. Whatever the path was, the result is exceptional. The land itself does most of the work. Nicklaus barely moved any of it. The course is links-style, with carries that punish the wrong club, but it is one of the most beautiful layouts we have seen on the trip so far. We chose the white tees at 6,500 yards. They were a little too much for our games, but we did not care. Of the four courses we had played in New Zealand by this point, Kinloch was the most interesting and the most challenging. For a low handicapper it would be a great test. For us it was difficult, beautiful, and worth playing again. After the round we packed up and headed for Hawke's Bay and Millhills Lodge, with Cape Kidnappers on the schedule for the next day.

#new-zealand #kinloch #kinloch-golf-club

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New Zealand

January 29, 20154 min read2015

Dateline January 29, 2015, Millhills Lodge, Hawke's Bay

After the round at Kinloch, we drove on to Hawke's Bay for a two-night stay at Millhills Lodge. TomTom led us to a small plot of land with several cows looking at us. A call to Sam Jackman told us we were two hundred yards from the actual turn-in. We were greeted by Penny and Sam and their dog Kip, given a tour of the cabins, pointed at the nearest liquor store (the vodka and rum supplies on the trip were running thin), and welcomed in for two of the most enjoyable days of the trip. The lodge sits on several acres surrounded by Penny's family farms, sheep on one side and cattle on the other. Dinner the first night at a place called Diva. The second night, Penny cooked for us at the lodge, a three-course dinner that closed with a Pavlova, and we spent the evening with Penny and Sam over Hawke's Bay wines. Between the two evenings was a day at Cape Kidnappers, where Bunny made her first hole-in-one. Eggs Benedict on the last morning. Hawke's Bay was wonderful.

#new-zealand #hawkes-bay #millhills-lodge

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Bunny Warenski with the Callaway ball from her hole-in-one on the third hole at Cape Kidnappers

New Zealand

January 30, 20151 min read2015

Dateline January 30, 2015, Ace Bunny Warenski, Hole in One!

Extra, extra, read all about it. Bunny made her first hole-in-one on the third hole at Cape Kidnappers. Some backstory. The day before, on the practice range at Wairakei, Bunny had set her clubs down on the grass. When she picked them up, there was duck poop on her clubs, her arm, and a little on her shirt. We all told her: bird poop is good luck. We had no idea how right we would turn out to be. The next day, on the third hole at Cape Kidnappers, with a Callaway ball that had a 3 stamped on it, on the 30th day of the month, on the third day in a row of New Zealand golf, Bunny put it in the cup. Cape Kidnappers later sent us a photo of the plaque with her name engraved on it. Bunny's was the second hole-in-one of the year on that course. The first one belonged to a PGA pro.

#new-zealand #cape-kidnappers #hole-in-one

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New Zealand

January 27, 20154 min read2015

Dateline January 27, 2015, Taupo and the Ambleside B&B

Out of Auckland and south to Taupo, with a stop at Rotorua along the way for the geysers and the mud cauldrons and the rest of New Zealand's small-Yellowstone thermal show. We arrived at the Ambleside B&B in Taupo and were met by our hosts, Pat and Russell Jensen, who poured us tea and wine and sat with us for an hour while we got to know them. They had raised two sons on a deer and sheep farm near Hawke's Bay and sold the farm twenty years ago to build this place. Russell's story of getting out of the venison business after Chernobyl, the Norway lamb paradox, the hawks that pick off the lambs at birthing time. Dinner at a lakeside restaurant down the hill at sunset. The next day we played Wairakei and came back to the hot tub — heated by the geothermal water that runs under the property, so hot it takes a hose of cold water to cool it down to soak in. Pat did our laundry for a nominal fee. Two nights here. Off to Huka Falls and then on to Kinloch and the Jack Nicklaus course.

#new-zealand #taupo #rotorua

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