NZ House & Garden
Re: “Win a Luxury Weekend” Competition
Attn: Kate Coughlan
In December 2008 for my birthday my girlfriend gave me a year’s subscription to the NZ House & Garden magazine and on receiving the July issue on the front cover was “Win a Luxury Weekend Away” The Hart Lodge, BMW and NZ House & Garden magazine. So I said to my husband 'that’s what we need a weekend away after a year of bad luck', so I put in for it there and then.
Well we took our weekend away at the end of November and the lovely people at BMW offered us the use of a BMW Z4 sports car from the Friday till the Monday, so a big thank you to them and what an awesome way to travel around.
So Friday morning we picked up the car at BMW Group, Mt Wellington, Auckland and Julie and Piers took us through the different features of the car, too many to mention. We left Auckland in style and headed up around the Coromandel coast where we had never been before. We had the hood up and down many times as we progressed towards Whitianga where we stayed the night.
The next morning we went on to the “Hart Lodge” in Tauranga and on arrival at the Lodge and driving through the immaculate grounds we were welcomed by Julie and Grahame Raw, owners of the lodge who were a really delightful couple and made us so welcome. We were shown to our suite, the library suite, which was of two rooms, lovely lounge with a fireplace and a selection of books to suit anybody’s needs. Then through to our bedroom, decorated in black and white and was just too nice to disturb, off this was our ensuite which was all mirrors, this put a new aspect on life! We were then invited to have drinks and nibbles with our hosts.
Next morning at 8.30 we sat in the conservatory for our four course breakfast, cooked by the chef Natasha, so after our extra long relaxing amazing breakfast we walked round the manicured grounds. In the afternoon Amie came over from Papamoa to give us our spa treatment, my husband had a massage for an hour and I had the facial which was just so relaxing and finished up with Julie coming up with a variety of fresh fruit and cool drinks.
Early evening we were invited for drinks and nibbles before we went into Tauranga for dinner. Next morning we had another really great breakfast by our chef.
We had a most pleasurable stay and would certainly recommend anyone to stay at “Hart Lodge” with Julie and Graham, it was all the little extras that they do for you that make you feel extra special and a big thank you to you both. We know we will probably never have another weekend away anything like it.
Then it was a lovely ride back to Auckland to take the BMW back and we would certainly have loved to have kept it but really grateful for the use of it for the four days.
So thank you to BMW Group and Hart Lodge for all your expense and to NZ House & Garden for the chance to have a great weekend.
Yours Faithfully,
Lynn Craig
