Welcome to City-Bush Retreat
Welcome to quality accommodation in a quality environment right where Auckland’s urban edge meets native New Zealand rainforest.
Increasingly travellers seek accommodation experiences that are noticeably different in look and feel. City-Bush Retreat offers just this kind of difference – a boutique apartment in the true sense: offering a high quality experience of a very special place.
City-Bush Retreat is a home away from home, located where the metropolitan urban area merges with the protected natural environment of the Waitakere Ranges. It is surrounded by fine native NZ rainforest, with bird-life, tinkling waterfall and stream. City-Bush Retreat is a very special place and it’s a privilege to be able to make this corner of paradise available for you to enjoy.
This was such a wonderful find and was a good start to our recent holiday
in the North Island. Less than half an hour’s drive from Auckland’s International Airport and we arrived at this
lovely self contained classy apartment.
Boutique apartment
Auckland boutique accommodation
City-Bush Retreat unites the uniquely New Zealand architecture of the “The Group Movement” with the best of modern amenities maximising sun and views. The Group was known for their provocative calls for a specifically New Zealand architecture and for their modern houses, often characterised by exposed timbers, natural wood floors, open-plan interiors and what was then a new attention to indoor-outdoor living that is now part of the typical New Zealand life-style.
City-Bush Retreat is tastefully decorated and appointed, offering low-key luxury with an exotic look and feel, enabling you to explore local New Zealand character without sacrificing the fine comforts of home. It is decorated with original New Zealand glass art, pottery and painting. Just across the road there is access to a walkway that meanders for three kilometres (1.8 miles) through native rainforest with views out over the Manuaku Harbour and Waitakere Lakes.
A Slice of Heaven
Wood Pigeon
It is no accident that in the language of the Maori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand, Titirangi means “Edge of Heaven”. Whether your visit will be oriented towards the city, family, the outdoor environment or all these, guests often tell us it is the green, quiet, agelessness of the natural rainforest that they remember most vividly: the sounds of the birds, the waterfall in the stream, or the total surprise of having a Kereru (large native Wood Pigeon) skim the deck and perch almost within touching distance on a Nikau Palm, even as you sit there enjoying your breakfast on the deck! These wonderful birds are now fully protected, but they were once a delicacy for Maori. (The photo is just 3m (12ft) from the house.)
Keepers of a precious heritage
600 year old Kauri
Our guests take with them a sense of timelessness from the 600 year old Kauri tree which was listed as a Protected Heritage tree by the Government. They often remark how wonderful it must be to own a 700 year old Kauri, but we remind them that we are really just minding its patch for a short time! Children in the neighbourhood call it the “Grandmother Tree” because it was a regeneration source for the whole valley.
Once Max found notes in coloured envelopes left at its huge base from the children addressed to the Grandmother Tree, wishing her well. Its trunk is over 9 meters (30 feet) around and this magnificent tree was only spared from the pioneers axes because of the huge wound in its base.
It is hard for us to believe that we’ll be leaving tomorrow! Hard because we stopped counting the days when we came here, stopped noting the time! We’ve enjoyed our stay with you so much, and enjoyed Auckland … always coming back to a comfortable and welcoming home – our homesickness vanished and we are now quite sad to leave.
