March 9 and 12, 2013
There’s a special place in Whangaroa Harbour called the Kingfish Lodge, and one of the things that makes it special is its location. It sits at the foot of a hill in a small bay, Kingfish Bay not far from the pass into the harbor, and you can only get there by boat.
The lodge itself is small, with only a few rooms, but their restaurant and bar get a lot of business from visiting boaters. It has an amazing view of the fjord-like bays at the other side of the harbor and is a great way for a non-boater boat to see the area. (They have a small boat to pick up guests/visitors from the town of Whangaroa a couple of miles inland).
If you do have a boat and want to visit, you should call ahead for a reservation. They hold a lot of fishing tournaments here, and during that time the lodge is completely booked. Otherwise, they welcome visiting yachties. After you’ve made your lunch or dinner reservation, you can either take your dinghy or pick up one of their moorings if you want to bring your boat. We came here two different times and picked up a mooring both times.
Once you arrive, you are welcome to stroll around the grounds and take easy trails that lead to points at either end of the bay. The walk is through forest has the feeling of the Pacific Northwest, but the views across the bay are very reminiscent of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas and are fantastic!
The restaurant has a dining room, but the deck has the best views. We were there for lunch when it was pretty empty and had no problem getting a deck table. They have two menus: a bar menu which has more moderately priced meals, or a restaurant menu with more elaborate and expensive meals. We could choose either one, but they wanted us both to order from the same menu.
We chose from the restaurant menu the first time we went (splitting the filet mignon and the fresh fish and the sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce for dessert), and the food was fabulous. In spite of being in such a remote place, they have an excellent chef. And while the food was fancy, the feeling of the place was very casual, and the lodge’s dog carefully supervised our enjoyment of the meal. The next time we went, we ordered off the Bar menu, which has more casual fare. We split the fish and chips and salt and pepper calamari, and both were excellent.
In all, we consider this one of the special finds on our cruise and highly recommend it. But if possible, avoid going the day before a tournament as those are a big deal here and they’re distracted by all the preparations they have to make. Rich did some fun blog posts about this place back when we were actually there: here, here and here. Here is a small gallery of pictures for this post. Click to enlarge and scroll. –Cyndi
