Te Moana is a lovely three bedroom house just across the road from the beach, so you sleep with the sound of West Coast rollers constantly testing the Taranaki shoreline, however, even on a chill night the house is perfectly insulated and cozy, so that a short holiday is not wasted by staying in and drinking wine with a meal which is easily prepared in the full kitchen.
We arrived late, lights on, heater going, making the near-cyclone conditions outside pale - and a bath! A full bath to lie in after a long day driving - bliss.
The house is nice, well maintained and clean, with all that is required for a nice breakfast in the morning (Lois - we stole the Marmite, there was a double-dipping incident, I thought in the interests of public health it was best to take the remainder).

The small town of Oakura is a lovely little, sleepy town, a great surf town - perhaps think twice about going to the pub the day the local footy team wins if all you want is a quiet drink, but otherwise it's a friendly place, and the city is only 5 minutes away.

Also, if you didn't realise because it is always hiding behind the cloud, there's a huge mountain just there! so, get your timing right and you can surf on Saturday and ski on Sunday. I also spotted a fairly abundant mandarin tree in a yard around the corner, and I'm pretty sure that the locals are friendly enough that if you struck up a conversation, you'd walk away with your jumper full of enough to make quite a bit of marmalade.