Driving the roads of the North Island can be a dreary business — fences, paddocks, paddocks, fences — but never mind that, you've just turned in from State Highway 47 towards the mountain, you've come along through the trees, and all in a moment you feel entirely elsewhere.
Here before you is a shimmering mountain, and on a sweeping lawn stands a castle. Or, if you prefer, a now-closed hotel and earthquake risk named the Chateau Tongariro.
I've seen fancier chateaux, the real things, but this one remains my lifelong favourite. I first saw it when I was seven years old, and no matter how many times I have come up that road and into its view it still impresses me hugely; grand and beautiful and somehow otherworldly.
When we were little, we would just drive past it, because the Chateau was where you went if you were rich, and that wasn't us. Sure, we were going skiing, but all the same, the fancy building was for other people.
You get a bit older and you find that sometimes you can actually go where rich people go. We went there for dinners. We stayed there on a New Year's Eve and got engaged. We marked our fortieth birthdays there. Each and every time, I have stood at the huge, huge picture window that looks out to Ngauruhoe and thought this is really special.
It's not even a hundred years old yet, but it has layers upon layers to it. It has been a speculative float, a receivership, a state asset, an asylum, and a convalescent home before it was ever the luxury item that closed in 2023.
