Dacre Cottage

Dacre Cottage sits near the beach, just across the Weiti River from us, we can see it from our living room (through binoculars). So maybe 2-3km as the crow flies, but a 25km drive.

On Friday, we went to visit it in person. You have to park almost a mile away and walk in. The trail was a mix of forest and meadows…

It was a super windy day, and the wind whooshing in the trees was sometimes so loud we couldn’t hear each other talking. We cleared a bunch of branches that had fallen across the trail.

Those houses in the background of the last picture, which we can also see from ours, are McMansions sitting in a big field. Why in a land so wonderfully endowed with trees would you plop your 6,000 square feet in the middle of a pasture??

The cottage itself, originally built in the 1850s, is cute and tiny. It’s possible to rent the site and go in, but otherwise it’s all locked up. The site is pretty well maintained, I think partly by volunteers and partly by the Department of Conservation.

Lee made us a nice picnic lunch. There are some benches and tables scattered around.

On the way out, we climbed partway up the trail (which continues on somewhere) to get a little bigger view. There are some fenced areas on the beach where endangered dotterels nest.

All in all, a great little outing!