Huka Lodge

Huka Lodge has been New Zealand's most storied luxury lodge since 1924, when it began as a trout-fishing camp on the emerald Waikato River a few minutes above Huka Falls near Taupō. Reopened on 1 March 2025 after a Baillie Lodges refurbishment, it sits in some seventeen acres of parkland, around ten minutes from Lake Taupō and a scenic three-and-a-half-hour drive from Auckland. There are around twenty riverside lodge and junior suites — fireplaces, high-beamed ceilings, picture windows and French doors onto river-view terraces, lightened in the refurbishment — plus two private multi-bedroom cottages, the Alan Pye and the Alex van Heeren, that suit families and house parties. Dining runs over the water across an expanded Dining Room and bar, the floor-to-ceiling River Room and the intimate Loft and Piper rooms, with an outdoor terrace and a double-sided open fire; the cellar holds more than 4,000 bottles. A dedicated spa and wellness area was added in the refurbishment, and there is an outdoor pool in the grounds, with the fast Waikato running past the lawns. The experiences are pure Huka: a century of fly-fishing heritage on the river, the signature Ultimate Huka Experience and Craggy Range Culinary Escape by helicopter, an Epic Rotorua culture-and-adventure day, and the thundering falls just upstream.