We stayed in Kaikoura for a long weekend with our 3 boys aged 16, 11 and 8. We cannot recommend more Cilla's place. It's secluded yet not far from town. It has great grounds with ocean and mountain views. The house is bigger and better than it seems on the pictures. It was built in 2012, it's insulated with modern windows and kitted as a home with everything you need for a comfortable stay. I'd say it's suitable for a 2 family visit as well. There is an ambient well layed out living area. There's a master bedroom with ensuite at one end of the house and 2 further bedrooms sharing a second bathroom at the other end. We were excited about the proximity of the train line. I appreciate some people may think it is not a great idea as Cilla stated that 'trains pass by the property all the time'. Well I've lived in Europe and I should say that rural NZ 'trains all the time' is somewhat different. We stayed over 3 days, 2 nights and we saw 4 trains. My younger kids and husband absolutely loved seeing the train pass by. It's a single line so you should in theory also see the Coastal Passific train going North and South each day but that service does not operate at the moment due to Covid. Staying off the grid was totally stressfree for us. There was one control for the hot water we were unsure about. We called our host and had a call back within 3min. Hot water, oven hob and oven all run on gas and that is very similar to mains gas around the world. The main challenge is running the dishwasher and washing machine during the day as many of us are used to setting these on for operation at night. There is an excellent house rules manual, there's a solar battery indicator so you know where you are at. We run everything as we would at home with the adjustment of running the dishwasher during the day.
There's no WiFi. Our kids had to play board games and cook with us. We also had plenty of activities outside including the whalewatching. There's mobile phone coverage so we had internet data if necessary. We saw seals on the local sandy beach - access is 5min walk from the property. An excellent stay for us! Thank you Cilla and Jeremy.