River Valley Lodge

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Superb food, great hospitality and awesome rafting. 👌

Had a wonderful two night stay in this piece of NZ paradise. A family owned business who couldn’t do enough for you, superb food and a beautiful setting beside the river. Really enjoyed the horse trek with stunning scenery. Also a mountain bike ride through the Moawhango village followed by a swim in the river and several cold drinks before dinner. Highly recommend.

Magical place, friendly down to earth staff, best food ever all grown/caught on location with excellent accomodation and top notch activities. One of my fav places to visit in NZ a true hidden gem of Aotearoa, highly recommend. 5 plus stars ✨✨✨✨✨

Tremendous spot for a few days away from it all with adventurous teenagers. Cannot recommend highly enough.

Awesome few days riding and staying with the team. The horses were great as were the staff. Excellent locally grown food.

Incredible get away on our own doorstep. Great activities, friendly staff and yummy local food. Highly recommended.

White water rafting grade 5 rapids was epic, thrilling, scary, exciting! The team of guides were very helpful, friendly, funny, knowledgeable, relaxed, just awesome.
The location is absolutely out of this world. Peaceful, private and simply stunning. So pleased we came and highly recommend seeing this beautiful part of Aotearoa.

Amazing experience. Stunning location. Great friendly people/staff. Put a lot of care into my dietary requirements and the horse riding was epic.

Location and the friendly and attentive staff. The food is outstanding for those on the package deals.

Great accommodation, food and people. Lovely setting.

Wow what a gorgeous place. Great food great service. Highly recommend river valley lodge :)

Had an awesome day with the crew from river valley lodge. The water rafting was better than expected with unbelievable scenery, super friendly staff and the food was delicious. Highly recommend.

We absolutely love River Valley Lodge — rustic and beautiful remote location, home cooked meals with produce sourced from their amazing vege garden, Fair Trade and environmentally friendly products in the room and some of the friendliest people around. They could easily get away with being average, but they choose to be awesome. We have been a couple times now and will definitely be back again!

The food at river valley is AMAZING.

Awesome experience and great staff!

Thank you so much for the amazing horseback experience today. Ayla was such a lovely friendly guide, my mount Billy was an absolute gentleman and lunch was delicious (best sandwich ever). The scenery and views were second to none and it’s so lovely to see the well cared for, happy and willing horses. Riding bitless was a new experience for me but River Valleys natural horsemanship principles are so refreshing and admirable in the industry. I was just thrilled with every part of my experience and will recommend River Valley Lodge to anyone I know visiting New Zealand and wanting to see the landscape by horseback.

Very wholesome, unique, eclectic. Rooms were clean and right on the river. Very comfortable with great shower. Food was special and original. Great bar and open area. People were totally awesome, friendly and accommodating. Loved the rafting!

We did a 2-day Mokai cayon rafting trip just before Christmas. Absolutely fantastic experience for my family from HK. 2 wonderful guides led us all the way in the Rangatikei river and prepared great meals and drinks for us. Very memorable! The scenery was astonishing! Thank you doesn't say enough for this trip.

A First-class river expedition on an exciting river. The guides were professional and safety-oriented and we felt like we were in good hands on a technically challenging river. The lodge is apparently geared towards accommodating large tour and bus groups with poor communication skills with the individual traveler. We arrived about a half an hour before our afternoon rafting trips was set to begin and were told our room was not yet ready — perfectly understandable. However, if we wanted a coffee or Wi-Fi access while waited, they were available for a separate charge. The tour group that was to make up the bulk of our rafting group was late, so we were left pretty much unattended to wait for our adventure to begin. Once they arrived, there was considerable confusion as to where to stow our dry clothes and getting the group dressed and ready to hit the river. The rafting trip itself was exciting and safely managed. At the end though we were again uncertain as to where and when to go as our room number had never been communicated to us and we had no idea when our prepaid dinner would be served. In the end, we figured things out and enjoyed a reasonable meal and comfortable room (private room with ensuite bath). It could have all been made simpler and. Stress-free with a more structured arrival process and better organized coordination of visitors and activities.

Came here on the Kiwi Experience. Now coming from someone who lives in New Zealand (Rotorua), we've got the Kaituna which is great but doesn't come close to River Valley. The accommodation was on point. Food was bloody great, the Host's would welcome you, drink (sensibly of course ;) ) with you. The rafting experience was awesome, such a blast and well worth it. And to top it off they had some cool walking tracks and Horse's to ride as well. 10/10 would come back again.