Arowhenua Hotel

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We left Christchurch and headed south to fish the Opihi River. When we got to the friendly town of Temuka, there was no room at the inn. We headed down the road, and as luck would have it, right across the river was this run down old hotel. I decided to check it out. 

We pulled in and there were about four people sitting outside drinking. I went inside to look for the front desk. I wandered through the halls of this old hotel and couldn’t find anybody. I wandered through the bar and there was a guy eating who looked up at me between bites and otherwise ignored me. I walked through the bar to the outside drinking zone and asked the group how to find the front desk.

A woman there put down her beer and said “I’m the front desk”. I asked about a room. It was one of those old hotels where none of the rooms has a toilet. You have to go down the hall. However, it does have a urinal (sink). I said I’d take it. It was one of those hotels like from Rocky Horror with velvet curtains and creaking wood floors. The bed was great and it also had French doors that opened out onto a porch in the back.

We decided to go fishing that evening, and I asked her for a key to the room. “We can’t find that one” she said. “Your stuff will be alright. My keys are in the ignition, and my purse is on the front seat”. 

When we got back, there was no one there except this old guy who gets a room for free for sleeping there. I don’t mean he gets a room to sleep in. Well, I guess he does. What I mean to say is he gets a room in exchange for sleeping there. The owner does not. There were no other guests. We had some beer. 

A short while later, the owner (Karen) came back and sat down with us. I asked her if they served any food. She said she could make us something. She could make me a bacon sandwich, or a ham steak, or some eggs, or…

I said I’d like to have some lamb curry on rice. “No problem”, she said. Cynthia had the whitebait omelet. 

Karen sat with us and told us all about the area, and offered us her house in Moereki (about two hours south) if we were going that way; $80 per night. “You can just drop the money off here when you come back through”. I told her we weren’t going to be coming back that way. She said we could just leave the money in the kitchen drawer then. The key is hanging on the back porch.

After a while, she said she was going home. “Help your self to the kitchen, or anything else” she said, and left. We were all alone in this old hotel, and the only thing she closed up was the bar. None of the doors were locked, and some of them weren’t even closed. The old guy was loading lamb shanks into a big crock pot. Karen said she might show up the next morning; maybe around 9:30. About 8:00 the next morning we were up and on the road.