Peppertree Lodge — Hotel in Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community

Fantastic set up hostel, with great kitchen and lounge facilities (which close at night).

Pros: The dorm rooms are good, if very standard. And generally this hostel attracts a really nice type of backpacker who is interested in culture and learning about other countries. The hostel opposite seems much more a drink and party place, which this is not.

The place is kept immaculately clean, very quiet at night, and everything works. All things which can be tricky to find if you usually go to city hostels around the world.

Good to know: The restaurant immediately opposite does one of the tastiest burgers I have ever tried and serves food until late.

DVDs are available in the office, but you need to remember to actually get them before it closes!

Cons: Having travelled extensively around the area, I can confirm that most other operators give guests a certain amount of internet usage for free (including through Zenbu). Just because Peppertree allows Zenbu to provide a service is not a good excuse to allow Zenbu to charge 2010 prices. Possibly the owner isn't aware of what a bad internet deal we are getting.

Also the private rooms are actually more expensive than luxury apartments just down the coast. Seriously, from what is basically a private en-suite dorm room here to a luxury apartment with bath tub (rare in NZ) and balcony. Do your research!

Finally the owner has his cheery days and his grumpy days, I was so excited to be back after staying here six years ago, but my big smile on check-in was met with a rather tired-of-backpackers neutral response. Not a big deal, but first impressions count!

If my review was helpful to you, please give me a thumbs up...

We stayed in Peppertree Lodge on 8 February 2013 for one night. After successless search in town we decided to pay 72 NZ$ (double bed) for a not very nice looking room with four beds. It didn't look very clean and the owner/manager welcomed us while eating and quite rude. For the toilets/showers we had to go downstairs and to our surprise they were mixed. If you had a shower you could hear people using the toilet. Not very comfortable. The worst thing about our stay was definitely that we didn't get back the 20NZ$ money deposit for the key (other people complaint too about this fact, so be cautious). We couldn't protest because we realized it the following week when we checked the credit card bill. When we wrote them to get back our money they replied that we had not returned the key, which is not true. We could't hand over the keys to the manager himself in the morning, because nobody was at the reception when we checked out (around 7:30), So we left it on the reception desk. We're pretty sure that nobody would steal such a big key and that at least the video camera would make clear, that we had brought it bag. I hope other travellers have the choice to stay in a...

If you are going to Paihia, this is the place to stay. Peppertree Lodge Backpackers is run by a lovely couple and the most cutest dog Bella. :)

From the first moment I fell in love with it. Clean and fresh facilities. Spacious rooms (even the one for 8 people), lockers under the beds, nice lounge, reading and kitchen area. Laundry also is available for extra fee that's really reasonable.

As they have been open only for few months, some things are still being upgraded, for example - more showers to come, now only two of communal use ones were available, but it didn't cause any issues, as the season is just at its beginning.

Only minuses would be that wifi is for free only for 100MB per day, any extra needs to be purchased, but hey... It's Bay of Islands, go out and explore!!!! :) But if you are in a need, close to lodge there is Spark phone booths with 1GB wifi. :)

As Paihia is small, everything is close - shop, beach, bars and cafés. From the owners you can get suggestions for the activities to do around the area. And they will suggest only the best - what they have heard from other visitors as...