Te Anau: Te Waka Lodge Review

The townships of Te Anau & Manapouri are the gateways to the Fiordland National Park – the largest out of the 14 National Parks in New Zealand. No trip to New Zealand is complete without a visit to the Fiords.  Spending 2 nights in the mouth of this renowned National Park can introduce you to the grandeur of Milford Sound, unique nature’s creation of glowworms, over 600 of formed tracks for hiking and many other key attractions!

Between Te Anau & Manapouri, our choice was to stay in Te Anau as the town center and pick up points for our tour operators were about 5 mins drive from our Airbnb accommodation. I really enjoy staying in Airbnb accommodations. It feels more personable to chit chat with locals and learn more about local culture & lifestyle. Sign up here to get $50 credit on your 1st Airbnb travel if you haven’t already used Airbnb.

We stayed at Mel’s and Rosco’s home known as Te Waka Lodge during our trip to Te Anau. We were pleasantly surprised to see this well maintained and aesthetically appealing home very close to the Te Anau lake.

The room offered is a private cottage that is neatly done and is equipped with all the modern facilitates. It was a very spacious room with a functional kitchen and all the necessary equipment like microwave and utensils. The cottage had a private parking and big open air balcony. It was indeed home away from home. Bad accommodations can indeed ruin your vacation. After a long day of tourism you really need a real bed and where you can crash, get a good sleep, recharge and step out again!

 

Mel and Rosco were great hosts and helped us with the necessary know how of the town. They gave us the privacy and had shared their contact numbers for us to reach to them when in need. We were leaving early from Queenstown on 2nd day and were pleased to see that they had defrosted our car in the morning without even requesting for it. It was such a nice gesture by them. Given a chance, I would definitely revisit them again. If you ever visit Te Anau, do check out their home on Airbnb. Once you sign up, you can use this direct link to book the accommodation.

And yeah, needless to say, visiting New Zealand is a lifetime experience. I will share all about it very soon!