The 80s "Executive Opulence" Of The Cove In Taupo

My bedroom at The Cove with the door opened to the spa pool.

Taupo’s always been a place I’ve thought of fondly, mainly for historic reasons: first time table-top dancing, first time playing pool on a round pool table, first time waking up in a room choked with second-hand smoke, and the first time landing a golf ball on the green. The famous hole-in-one green that floats 100m from the shores of Lake Taupo accounts for one of those firsts, a backpackers’ above a pub pre the indoor smoking ban several of the others.

All of those tattooed moments in time have more than a whiff of my late teens / early 20s about them. Me and the friends would often include Taupo on the rollicking road-trips of those immediate post-high school years and it was always great fun.

And then the years slip by and you haven’t danced since the last wedding, tables are for eating, pool tables are always rectangle, you still suck at golf and you can’t think of anything worse than staying in a backpackers’ (despite there no longer being such thing as indoor second-hand smoke seeping through the floorboards). Truth be told, even as a young man I’d always had a healthy appreciation of nice accommodation, it’s just that the opportunities were limited / nonexistent.

Adulthood and travel writing have changed things and brought with them amazing experiences in locations the younger version of myself would’ve never believed. So with news that friends from Australia were going to be in Taupo for a night a couple of weeks back, I couldn’t resist finding somewhere with a point of difference to classy-up my future memories of the popular central North Island tourist town.

The Cove, with my room and balcony top-right.

The Cove fit the bill. Taupo has 5-star boutique lodges and 5-star chain hotels. It has everything from down and dirty backpackers’ to luxury hideaways for the rich and famous. With New Zealand’s largest lake (at 616 square kilometres, almost the exact size of Singapore), snowcapped volcanoes, thermal pools, waterfalls, world-class fishing, bush-walks, bungy-jumping and countless other activities, Taupo’s popularity is not surprising.

What I was looking for accommodation-wise was something that wasn’t just luxurious, but had a bit of a story to tell. And The Cove was it. Built in 1986, The Cove has a kind of 80s executive opulence that I believe will only grow in nostalgic appeal in the decades to come. The 80s vibe is there in the curved, glass and tile-heavy repeating design as the long, narrow building leans its way down a slope to the lake. For Aucklanders, think of those cool low-rise apartments in Mission Bay with the bubble-lifts for an architectural cousin.

Many of the rooms have private decks with their own spa pool. I think that’s what really sold me, not to mention being offered a suite with a separate living-room, a cute kitchen and large bed and bathrooms. Also the fact The Cove is recently under new ownership and management and that the echoes of the high life before the 87 stock-market crash are now updated, though not obscured, by a full 2014 refurbishment. Think new carpet, new kitchenettes, new artworks, a new paint-job, new bedding, new furniture and plans for a thermally-heated lap-pool adjacent to the building. A quick peek inside the penthouse reveals the expectations of modern luxury are well understood at The Cove and at a price that is pretty sensational considering the views and location.

The view over Lake Taupo from my deck at The Cove.

Speaking of which, The Cove is set on the lake a couple of kilometres down the road from the Taupo CBD. Me and the Aussie friends had beverages and spa-ed it up before heading into town for a meal. Memories of table-top dancing flooded back, but not being 19 anymore prevailed and we stayed well behaved. One of us – not me – had bungy jumped earlier in the day and the beauty of the turquoise water below had struck me almost as much as the bravery of the jump.

Returning to Auckland the next day, it was time to get some exercise. Most people just park up at Huka Falls (10 minute drive north of Taupo), walk one minute to the viewing platform and take some photos. Turns out there are several other viewing platforms of the thundering falls (enough water to fill five Olympic swimming pools every 60 seconds), not to mention many kilometres of excellent walking and cycling trails through the surrounding bush.

After burning a chunk of calories at the falls, the next stop was the Waikato town of Te Aroha (100 mins south of Auckland) to remember my late Grandmother who is buried there. For years I’d always wanted to climb Mt Te Aroha, part of a mountain range that frames the flat, fertile farming lands of the province below where Cathie Roxborogh lived so much of her life. With this day as good as any, that’s what I did.

Enjoy the photos and a special thanks to the lovely managers of The Cove, Cheryl and Gary. For more please visit their website thecove.co.nz or call them on +64 7 378 7599. All photos are my own except the three captioned as being courtesy of thecove.co.nz.