Last week I blogged about a quaint little town on the West Coast of the South Island – Moana (or Lake Brunner). It only made sense to review my stay on this week’s blog. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything too bad. Seeing as no one contested the fact that I mentioned, Hotel Lake Brunner, is the only hotel in Moana, I’m assuming I’m right. I mean it’s a small town, so I must be right. But what I mean is, no one mentioned anything about any neighbouring hotels at a short distance from Moana.

You will have more options in Greymouth as that’s slightly more catered to tourists, local and international. Moana very much is catered to local tourists. What do I mean by that? Well, Moana is a small town with just 80 families. A lot of Kiwis, have purchased holiday homes there, and go down there during the summer. The population in Moana can go as high as 3000. I would assume that most of the locals also put their holiday homes up on Air B’n’B or Book a Bach type sites to earn a bit of extra income. Alternatively, if you’re one with nature, and a bit more outdoorsy than I am, then perhaps camping is your option. So, for those of you, who are way too much of a city person, and prefer a roof over your head and access to clean toilets etc. then continue reading this blog. Or well, read this blog anyway, it would make me happy.

I stand by my word, Hotel Lake Brunner is the only hotel in town. It offers a mix of hotel style accommodation i.e. private rooms/apartments depending on how many people you’re travelling with, as well as shared dormitory type facilities.

The Good:

The fact that it is the only hotel with a range of accommodation types available is quite handy. The staff are great and very helpful. They are great at building a relationship with you and making you feel at home.

This hotel offers a pick up and drop off service to the train station for those who are arriving into Moana on the Tranz Alpine. This is quite handy given there’s no Uber (and I didn’t see any taxis) in Moana. If your luggage is just backpacks, then you may opt to walk, however, if the weather is bad, this service definitely comes in handy.

The hotel has a restaurant on site. It is one of two restaurants in the area. Moana tends to follow certain restrictions at their restaurants i.e. certain food items on the menu are only available after a certain time. I suspect this may be due to a supply situation. If you know what the reason is, let me know if the comments below. They offer a continental breakfast that includes cereal, fruits and toast for a small cost, but you also have the option of a hot breakfast for a slightly larger cost.

The rooms have uninterrupted views of the lake, which is always appreciated.

The bad:

This is not so much an issue with the hotel, as it’s more of a, you’re at the same place so you go to the same place for breakfast, lunch and dinner issue. By the end of our stay, you could say we knew the menu inside out.

Aside from this, there really wasn’t anything bad or ugly that I can talk about.

We had a very comfortable and nice stay, and that was great.

Until next time,

MiliG