Back in August, I booked us a long weekend staycation to relax and unwind. I found this beautiful accommodation located in Matakana and took way too many photos during our stay. I might as well share them here. Continue on if you want to know more. I highly recommend this place!

I usually find cool accommodation on Airbnb and I was close to booking another one from there until I found this place on Booking.com. This place is called Bali Garden NZ and is located in Matakana, closer to Point Wells area. If you’re wondering about the name, the house design isn’t really Bali-inspired but the location is within Bali Garden NZ company which has a store and yoga/wellness studio.

What got me when I saw the photos on booking.com was the style and decor of this place. I loved the barn-style doors, the high ceilings and overall style. It’s also something different to the previous places we’ve stayed at before. The left photo is the view towards the front door. The right photo is towards the garden.

This stand-alone holiday house has one bedroom, two bathrooms (one is accessible), lounge and full kitchen.

Towards the left of the house is the massive bedroom.

Towards the right are the separate lounge, kitchen and then the laundry (has washer and dryer) and second bathroom. It is quite a large space for 2 people.

The bed is super comfy and has a great view towards the garden and the dining area too.

The bedroom is so spacious. There is a desk if you need to work but the other side has a huge wardrobe with linen robes you can wear during your stay and the ensuite bathroom. I love the wood they used in this house and the ceiling fan is great. We kept them on at night and it wasn’t too loud.

The main bathroom has a bath which was nice. They also had bath salts available to use. The Matakana Botanicals toiletries they have in this place smelled so good.

The lounge area is quite a cosy room. It has a couch, TV with Netflix, Youtube etc but my favourite part was this vintage telephone decor.

As for the kitchen, it is a full kitchen with stove, oven and dishwasher so we brought our own food and cooked our meals during our stay. There are some nice places to eat in Matakana but we wanted to have a relaxing time and not have the pressure to go out if we didn’t feel like it.

There were also some lovely touches in the kitchen. Waiting for us when we arrived were a bottle of wine, beers, chips and chocolates. There were also Vogel’s bread and thisMcGees Bees honey for our breakfast toast. It was delicious.

My favourite part of this place is the middle dining area. We got lucky during our stay as the sun came out even though it was forecasted to rain the entire weekend. I loved the high ceilings, wooden beams and how bright this space is. The doors fully open to the back garden and large deck.

One of the best parts of this place is how private it is too.

The back has a huge garden with a covered pergola and outdoor chairs and a huge deck. You can open all the doors from the lounge, dining and bedroom over the deck. This place is so private that you can sunbathe in peace. When the sun came out, I ended up reading my book out on the deck. I really enjoyed reading Book Lovers too. It was a nice easy read.

Overall, we had an amazing stay here in Bali Garden. We stayed during Max’s birthday and he turned his phone off when we arrived. We read our books, binged on Brooklyn 99 and cooked our meals. We also went out for a walk towards Omaha and Max went for a run. You can also walk around the gardens within the Bali Garden grounds. They have quite established trees and you may see their cat too!

I highly recommend staying at this place. It’s beautiful, relaxing and it has everything you need. It’s also only an hour away from Auckland central.

---

After we checked out from Bali Garden, we headed over to Brick Bay for lunch. As it was Max’s birthday weekend and we cooked our meals during our stay, I wanted us to have a nice meal out. Brick Bay was only 12mins away from Bali Garden and not too much of a detour on our way back home.

I recommend booking if you want to dine in Brick Bay in their glasshouse restaurant.

Since they are a winery, I tried their wines (I liked the red more). I got the salmon and Max had the braised beef cheeks. We also shared the truffle fries. We had a nice lunch and afterwards we decided to do the sculpture trail (entry is extra but I think you get a discount when you dine at their restaurant).

The Sculpture trail was a nice way to end our long weekend staycation. We were full from lunch so the walk around Brick Bay was nice. There are some ridiculous and cool artworks on the trail. We had fun.

After Brick Bay, we stopped at Charlie’s Gelato as our final stop. If you’re in the area, I recommend stopping by there too. They have heaps of flavours and is handmade in Matakana.

That’s all from our long weekend staycation for Max’s birthday. August and September were such busy months so even though I wanted to post this, it took me some time to finish. So far we don’t have any other staycay/holiday plans for the remainder of the year BUT next year will be exciting! 🙂