We had been staying in Napier for a couple of nights before our stay here and wanted to check in earlier than normal so we could borrow the bikes from Denis. I phoned the day before to check if this was going to be okay and was told that it would be fine. When we arrived the next day, Denis was very unwelcoming - he came out, didn’t say hello and just grumbled ‘oh you wanted to borrow the bikes’ and lead us around to the shed.
We were made to feel as if we were intruding and there was no warmth at all during the exchange. We are very happy - in fact prefer - to keep to ourselves and certainly don’t need hand-feeding information, but the reason we use air bnb is to give some local context to our travels. When I tried to engage him and find out a bit more about a couple of the wineries, he made it clear he had no interest in talking to me.
This couple have obvioudly been doing this for years - there is a visitor book in the cottage that goes back to 1997 - so I wonder if perhaps Denis has had enough of playing the host. The cottage IS charming and the gardens are beautiful but unfortunately there is a bit more to it than that.