Welcome to nowanden homestay where:

View from The Mussel Inn out to Kenepuru     Magnify

Nestled above and overlooking Waitaria Bay in Kenepuru Sound, Marlborough, is our place in paradise. You’ll not have heard of nowanden, and you’d be among a chosen few to be able to pin point Kenepuru Sound, let alone Waitaria Bay. Well here’s your chance as we’d love to be your host on your next special holiday. For at nowanden we have built a straw bale house and right next door, but tucked away a bit for your privacy, is the tin can miner's cottage, The Mussel Inn, of two bedrooms, sleeping five, your private lounge, plus of course the basic amenities for tea and coffee making, shower and toilet. Optional it is, but you’ll probably want to join us for Helen’s cuisine in our ‘hayshed’ or under it’s pretty large barbecue patio.

It’s hello from her

And it’s hello from him

The Maori warrior / chief Te Rauparaha wasn’t stupid when he recognised the grass to be greener here as he paddled his troops across Cook Strait to plunder the majestic waterways we know as Pelorus and Kenepuru Sounds.

Some 180 years after Te Rauparaha’s ventures and on a much more respectable mission we, a pair of pre baby boomers, winged our way here in search of our retirement retreat. The shopping list comprised the sea, ample scope for safe boating, fishing, a few acres on which to graze our horses, some sheep, the odd cow, some chooks and a pig. Add to the list the bonus of Greenshell™ Mussels, Scallops, native bush walks including Queen Charlotte Track, uninhibited marine life of Dolphins, Gannets and more. Now you are starting to get a rough picture of our nowanden. To be self sufficient in electrical energy and most produce, while we dance to the orchestra of silence, places nowanden in the realm of dream come true as we bask in this life of independence which we now invite you to sample.

We’d come from up north where a garden centre, farm and equestrian centre had been our ways of means. Now with all that behind it was time to indulge in habits and hobbies. First turf to be turned was for Helen’s beloved and productive vegetable garden. Next a barn for the horse gear, sheep handling, tractor and boat storage. So with the essentials now sorted it was time to locate and build a house. “Next house we build will be straw bale” she had said. And so it was to be as the ‘Little Pig Building Company’ was called in. The power lines through the place for us were neither use nor ornament as ‘Alternative Power NZ Ltd’ guided us through the thrills and spills of going independent in electrical energy. We now create our power via hydro, solar and wind generators.

Our patio with the BBQ     Magnify

That done, the pastures sown and fences built it was time to find alternative occupation for Pat. Making pavers, boardwalks, a brick oven, outdoor furniture, twenty nine uses for discarded mussel buoys and a mosaic table did the trick along the philosophy “a job that can’t be finished by three o’clock on the day it was initiated isn’t worth starting”.

Gone fishin'     Magnify

A fondness for boating and exploring the very special waterways of Kenepuru and Pelorus Sounds lead Pat to get registered for charter tours.