Gawping at mountains and picnicking beside lakes is most visitors’ experience of the Alps-embraced drive between Christchurch and Queenstown on New Zealand’s South Island. But climb out of Omarama towards the Lindis Pass, take a right into the Ahuriri Valley and 20 gravel-dusty minutes later, high-Alpine hideaway The Lindis comes into view. It’s the most rewarding of pitstops.
This all-frills lodge does its level best not to detract from its magnetic front man: the jaw-droppingly beautiful surroundings. Right behind the lodge, overlooked by all suites and the restaurant and bar, the Ahuriri River gently undulates in silvery, snaking curves at the valley base. On either side, the chiselled tops of the Barrier and Huxley ranges stand sentry, cloistering the hotel’s grasslands in quiet. This geography is the artwork of long-gone glaciers, and The Lindis’s low, ripple-roofed profile reflects the grass mounds that the ice fields left behind.
But as backing singers go, The Lindis gives its Ahuriri setting some stiff competition. Mr Smith and I have brought our 10- and 12-year-old children along to this upscale retreat for a couple of nights on our way south, and its pitch-perfect interiors are just as attractive as their peak-patrolled setting.
Our high-ceilinged suites — two of just five in the main building — feature arching timbered ceilings that prompt new respect for carpentry. Full-length windows flaunt that ravishing river view, and while Mr Smith chooses to admire it with a book, alfresco on our private terrace, I run a bath indoors and soak it all in with a glass of champagne. The children are binge-watching YouTube next door, trying to get over their disappointment that housekeeping has removed all sweets and fizzy pop from their suite at my request.
Don’t feel too bad for them, dear reader. The Lindis is full-board, by necessity (where else would you eat?), so the children have three chef-prepared meals a day to look forward to, between outdoor adventures walking, cycling and horse riding in the valley, and days curtailed with marshmallows and hot chocolate beside the fire pit. And the fact that we’re given the dinner menu well ahead means we can avoid those awkward fussy-eater episodes that every parent dreads, with the kitchen team happy to adjust dishes to our kids’ liking.
For our one day to play, we divide into pairs: father and son head off on e-bikes to tackle the valley’s eight-kilometre mountain trail; my daughter and I are booked in at the lodge’s stables for a one-hour horse ride.
It’s my daughter’s first-ever hack (leaving behind the safety of indoor lessons for a ride under her independent control), and our first horseback outing together, so the dice are loaded for a memorable morning. And that’s before we’re out in the winter sunshine, hemmed in by snow-capped peaks on all sides, before we’ve inspected the immaculately kept stables, or even been introduced to our trusty steeds.
These horses are in theory the lodge owner’s ‘pets’ and my daughter is instantly in love with her rust-patched, blue-eyed horse, Inigo. My ride, Tormentor, is half-Clydesdale — intimidating in both height and name — but she turns out to be both sweet and quite sleepy, putting me at ease that no ‘torment’ lies ahead.
Olivia and Elise, our guides, take us on a loop to the lake and back. The terrain is dramatic in looks but manageable for our level of experience, and gives us excellent views of Black Diamond: an angular obsidian hut that frames breathtaking valley vistas, built explicitly because staff were fed up with South Island rain stopping play for their barbecue option; it can be booked for a private lunch here and reached on foot, by 4×4, or on horseback. I make a mental note to ditch the kids and return with Mr Smith another time.
In the afternoon, we take a trail from the lodge that follows the river to the valley’s clay-cliff ‘amphitheatre’; a towering, tawny-hued wall that concertinas down to the river at its feet. It’s just as impressive as the landmark ‘Clay Cliffs’ signposted on State Highway 8 (which make a picturesque pitstop for passing tourists), and yet you have the Lindis cliffs all to yourselves.
As the children forge ahead on our return walk, keen to be reunited with YouTube, they are soon tiny dots on the path in this vast valley, and yet there’s no need to fear for their safety. Immersed in nature, they are free to run wild. Part of The Lindis’s luxury is in the privilege you feel at being in such a rugged, unpopulated spot.
Inspired by a fireside stargazing talk on our first night — the highlights of which were viewing a dandelion-clock-like globular star cluster through astronomer Joseph’s telescope, and tittering childishly while he pointed out a ‘galactic bulge’ in the Milky Way — for our second night, we have booked an after-dark session in the hotel’s hot tub, set a short walk from reception and tucked into the grasslands.
Turning what’s usually a romantic assignment into a family soak is clearly a mistake: the children are wired on hot chocolate and intent on splashing and shouting, so much so that Mr Smith loses his composure and I escort the little Smiths back to their suite so we can enjoy the tub in peace.
The cold, wet shuffle in my bathrobe from tub to hotel and back is a worthy sacrifice. Lighting a (much more romantic) bathe for two, the stars overhead are pin-sharp and uncountable. At one point, a flight of ducks passes above us, headed for the river. They’re flying low, as their quacks and wing-flaps are audible, but they are otherwise invisible in the unpolluted dark. Scaup ducks must be smarter than we realise if they’re checking in for a spell on this awe-prompting stretch of the Ahuriri.
On the return drive to Christchurch, after visiting family in Queenstown, we continue on State Highway 8, straight past the gravelled road that takes you to The Lindis. Believe me, it takes willpower not to make that turn. I think about how many travellers must do the same — oblivious to the wonders that await down an unprepossessing gravel track. You’d be wise not to make the same mistake: a sojourn at The Lindis is a detour well worth taking.
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