Arrive.
All you need to know about Arete.
Travel Tips, Getting Here & Transfers
Arete Retreat is located at 865 Gladstone Road, Levin in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region of the lower North Island of New Zealand.
It is nestled into the foothills of the Tararua Forest Park, and is part of the wider Makahika Outdoor Pursuits Centre property.
If you’re driving from Wellington, Arete is about 1 1/2 hours by car. If you’re driving from Palmerston North it’s just under an hour away.
The nearest main airports are Wellington or Palmerston North, but if you’re flying from Auckland you could also fly into Kāpiti airport in Paraparaumu via Air Chathams.
We can accommodate helicopter landings with prior arrangement.
We recommend that the Arete team uplifts your group from the airport to meet your flight timings. It is also suggested that if your team is located in Wellington City, or Palmerston North City, you allow us to pick you up as a ‘group’, travelling to and from your location to Arete, with us.
Our roads are rural and isolated with no cell range in transit; to decrease your stress and increase your safety, it would be grand if you’d allow us to ensure you arrive and depart safely and joyfully. Let us arrange to pick you up. It will be our pleasure.
Dining at Arete
Divine, organic, free-range, locally sourced product, is prepared and served from the extraordinary ‘little’ whare kai. Sally’s passion is food. So not only will she facilitate all day, she happily spends the evenings providing exquisite dining options to meet individual dietary needs.
Supported by her catering team, there are no dietary needs that cannot be accommodated. Your needs will be explored, menus discussed, and wine lists made, as part of the discovery process for your Retreat.
What to expect once you’re here
Our point of difference is that Arete Retreat is truly off grid. There is no cell phone coverage and no WIFI.
There are options to upload and download data and information at the Makahika OPC office. If absolutely necessary, we can arrange for your team to have evening access to the internet.
The Retreat is proudly carbon neutral. We use the sun and our solar systems to cool your beer and wine, light your evenings and spark your infinity gas showers.
Beautiful, simple and elegant, our accommodation whare do not have power points; you can’t use a hairdryer, charge your phones, or plug in your computers. But you do have beautiful linen, gorgeous bedding, fabulous dressing gowns, and luxurious towels.
The facilitation wharenui has power for computers, pro-lights etc, however, our preferred facilitation tools are flip charts, pens, string and pegs. The neuroscience is simple: there is amazing relief for our brains to be off blue-light and decrease our dopamine addiction and goal interference.
Bringing warm clothes, comfortable footwear, and a good rain jacket, will ensure you are able to relax for this extraordinary rain forest experience. We have umbrellas for keeping dry while navigating between the accommodation whare and the main social and dining space. At dusk, the pathways are lit, as if you are enveloped within a tropical paradise, with sandalwood flares, and solar lighting. Truly magical.
Two stunning wood fires heat the main wharenui, teak furniture, with small touches of elegance, define your experience. This is an ‘event’ that happens to you; the gift of disconnection that allows connection. You will feel different, we promise you that.