My Perfect Autumn Getaway

Things I Like About Autumn:
- Baking ANZAC cookies
- Planting spring bulbs
- Lighting the fire for the first time
- Persimmons
- And, best of all, the first walk on a beach when it’s kind of chilly and you have to rug up a little bit

The best place in the world for this last one is my local beach: Te Henga (Bethell’s Beach). It’s on Auckland’s vast west coast - all huge rolling surf, black iron sand, towering cliffs, rugged forest and virtually no people. Magic. Remember the beach in The Piano? That’s the vibe I’m talking about.

Te Henga is a sensational 40-minute drive from downtown Auckland - just over the towering Waitakere Ranges that divide the city from the Tasman Sea. The beach itself is huge and quite often deserted - on one autumn Saturday morning it was just us, the dog and a baby seal doing a spot of sun bathing. At the northern end of the beach are a couple of easily accessed smaller bays and a few minutes up the road is Lake Wainamu hidden in among the enormous dunes. If you don’t fancy beach or lake, there are wonderful forest walks all around the area.

For food the Te Henga Cafe is the best in Auckland. Operated out of an old caravan nestled amongst the dunes Te Henga Cafe makes sensational coffee, the best home made organic carrot cake I’ve ever had and, for a real treat, gourmet burgers and kumera (native sweet potato) fries with aioli. Look out for passing llamas. Bizarre, but true. Life doesn’t get better than this.

Actually, it does. By staying at the Bethell’s Cottages. Run by Trude Bethell who’s family have owned much of the land around this beach since colonial times. The two cottages are perched upon the cliff overlooking the beach. They’re cute and funny and homely and sort of home made looking in a good way.

If you’re staying at the cottages they might allow you access to the private lake ten minutes walk into the ancient forest - some of the native Pohutukawa trees around here are 800 years old. If it’s early in autumn and still warm, you can climb out on the low hanging branches of a Pohutukawa tree and swing out over the lake on a rope.

A few minutes walk from the cottages is sunset point which is best enjoyed with a bottle of wine and good friends - the trick is here to watch for the elusive green flash. In all the west coast sunsets I’ve seen I’ve only witnessed it once - just as the sun drops below the waterline there’s a split second when the whole sky flashes green. It’s surreal.

After sunset point cocktails, wander back to the cottages and settle down outside by the open fire with a blanket and listen to the thunderous surf and count the shooting stars.