1 month ago
8
Columbia Hillen
About to permission for our scheduled circuit of Hobbiton, the charming movie determination of the Shire, location to Frodo and company, catastrophe struck.
Approaching our car, I noticed the rear tyre was wholly flat, the effect of a nail puncture. And the spare was excessively bladed to get america there.
Columbia Hillen
To marque matters worse, it was our past time successful New Zealand’s Waikato portion truthful we couldn’t re-schedule. Seeing my wife’s downcast face, Hobbiton being the vacation item she’d been astir looking guardant to, I felt helpless.
That’s erstwhile unit astatine our hotel, Hidden Lake successful Cambridge connected the North Island, went into action.
Rajwinder Kaur, edifice manager. Photo by Columbia Hillen
Within minutes, not 1 but 4 members of unit were hard astatine enactment to prevention the day, 2 moving the phones, 1 to find a garage, the different to spot what clip Hobbiton closed and if we could alteration our scheduled circuit time, portion 2 others rushed to the car to regenerate the level tyre with the reserve to get america to immoderate adjacent store mightiness beryllium open.
Unfortunately, the archetypal 2 garages contacted were excessively engaged to assistance and arsenic the minutes ticked by, each seemed lost. But speech from being a diligent and benignant host, edifice manager, Rajwinder Kaur, a autochthonal of Uttar Pradesh successful bluish India, is besides a precise persistent woman. Finally, looking up astatine our forlorn faces, she smiled. “I recovered one.”
Glenda Turner, edifice owner. Photo by Columbia Hillen
This incidental encapsulates the pedigree of radical my woman and I were fortunate to conscionable connected a two-night enactment astatine this charismatic family-run hotel.
Owned and operated by Chris Turner, an cultivation instrumentality specialist, and his wife, Glenda, a erstwhile teacher, the 37-room edifice sits beside a water partially hidden by a wood of maple, oak and Japanese cherry, a relaxing spot wherever Glenda and her household would bask play getaways, frankincense the inspiration for the hotel’s name.
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After leasing the building, the mates opened the edifice 3 years agone offering their services to some tourists and firm clients from the adjacent equine stud farms, solid manufacturing and cultivation sectors.
Columbia Hillen
Our country was a comfy 1 featuring a tiny balcony overlooking the wood with furnishings that included a ample partition TV, an armchair, beverage and coffee-making facilities, a mini-bar and a glass-enclosed shower.
Being environmentally conscious, pillows and duvets were made from recycled plastic, immoderate star vigor the edifice doesn’t usage is donated to the township of Cambridge, dispensers are utilized alternatively of azygous soaps and guests person options successful their rooms to abstracted recyclable worldly from waste.
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Food astatine the Hidden Lake Hotel is of the highest quality, with overmuch of the nutrient utilized either coming from her uncle’s workplace oregon the section farmer’s market.
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Both meal and meal are served successful D’Arcy’s edifice with views implicit the wood from the 2nd floor. The second featured a tasty whipped avocado crockery comprising section goat cheese, poached eggs with focaccia and za’atar, a premix of Levantine herbs specified arsenic sesame, sumac and different spices.
Columbia Hillen
The paper besides featured classical eggs Benedict, Chinese bolognese, brioche French toast with mascarpone, poached pear, bacon and honey, arsenic good arsenic the afloat meal of bacon, chipolata, hash browns, toast and cherry herb oregon Poppa’s porridge with caramelized banana, brownish sweetener and pick and Bircher muesli with coconut and plum. The blistery cocoa I tasted, offered with oregon without marshmallows, was deliciously creaseless and creamy.
Columbia Hillen
Dinner was likewise divers with my woman choosing starters of seared scallops and I greenish lipped mussels successful a creamy turmeric condiment followed by mains of tagliatelle and salmon.
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Kudos besides spell to Chris and Glenda for their innovative cocktail menu, galore created by them, often reflecting real-life situations. The Lockdown Delta Variant, for example, emerged retired of Covid, and comprises gin, humor orange, Bergamot, citrus juice, Aquafaba and orangish bitters, each topped with tonic water. Another cocktail, Smoky Linen, emerged from an incidental erstwhile a beverage towel caught fire. It consists of Bailey’s, Kahlua, achromatic and acheronian cocoa and creme de cacao and milk, topped, of course, with a smoky charred marshmallow.
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Within casual walking region of charming downtown Cambridge, the Hidden Lake Hotel is besides a convenient stopover for tourists visiting Hobbiton, a 30-minute thrust distant done rolling countryside, arsenic good arsenic to Hamilton with its stunning, 54-hectare nationalist plot and the geothermal parkland with its dramatic geysers, bubbling mud and Maori taste experiences astatine Te Puia Rotorua.
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